Unfortunately for an entire decade I was afraid.
Because squash.
But recently as gluten free and Paleo were making their ascent, I began to lose my fear of squash. It started with butternut squash and soon I had made my way all the way to the famed spaghetti squash. Lo and behold, Irma turned out to be right.
In all honesty, it does not taste a whole lot like spaghetti to me and the texture is more like a watercress, but once it's covered in sauce...who really cares?
But the great thing is, it really IS as easy as my ex-mother-in-law made it out to be and presumably quite healthy too.
First, stab the squash.
You don't have to kill it all the way. Just pierce it a few times to let out the steam. I like to to stab it right where I'm going to have to cut it anyway. Because...laziness.
Then microwave it five minutes on one side, five minutes on the next side, a little longer if it's a very large squash.
Cut the squash in half.
That stringy stuff is NOT the spaghetti! Those are just some seeds and stringy stuff. Scoop it out with a spoon and toss it. A grapefruit spoon works well for this part, but I couldn't find mine.
Now the fun part: take a fork and gently scrape the sides of the squash. Ta-da! Magic "spaghetti"! Only gluten free and healthy! If it's hard to scrape, just stick it back in the microwave for a few minutes.
Then just do whatever you do to normal spaghetti. I usually cover it with spaghetti sauce but I've also made it into spaghetti-lasagna by just layering it with ricotta.
And look! No huge pot of water to clean up afterward!
And for those people who like actual recipes to look at:
Microwave Spaghetti Squash
Ingredients:
One spaghetti squash
Sauce of your choice
Directions:
Pierce sides of spaghetti squash.
Microwave on one side for five minutes.
Turn over and microwave on the other side.
Cut in half.
Scoop out the seeds and inside parts that looks like it SHOULD be the "spaghetti" and throw it away or compost it.
Scrape out the actual spaghetti from the flesh using a fork- that's the part you really eat!
Serve with pasta sauce of your choice.
