Recipe #11 - Spaghetti Squash



Spaghetti Squash - before & after


I have my dear college roommate from junior & senior years to thank for this recipe.  She introduced me to this unusual vegetable.  It looks like any old squash on the outside but cooks up into a crispy noodle facsimile which you pull out from the shell.  Amazing!  I typically serve it with bolognese sauce, but spaghetti squash noodles would work with almost any sauce, even including a chow mein/ lo mein preparation.  The recipe to prepare the noodles is this simple:

1) wash the outside of the squash
2) slice the squash in half across the shorter diameter
3) use a spoon to scrape out the seeds & stringy gunk from the middle
4) place the squash cut side down in a microwave-safe dish, then fill the dish with water 1 cm deep (that's 1/4 of an inch, y'all)
5) microwave 4-7 minutes (depending on size of the squash) on full power
6) carefully remove the squash from the dish (it's so cool - the water gets 'sucked up' into the squash cavity while cooking, & the dish will look dry when you take it out; but when you pick the squash up, the hot water gushes back out of the squash into the pan)
7) use a fork to scrape out the spaghetti squash strands, fluffing any chunks to separate the 'noodles'