Light Fare

Wow, I've been on quite a hiatus from this here blog!  Life has been in warp speed with lots of wonderful things but also with some really hard, difficult to think about things as well.  The past few weeks have been full of planning party after party it seems, whether its personal birthday parties for my kids, back to school Staff Appreciation chairman duties which have ramped up since the start of school as well as hosting three baby showers over the next few weeks; its been full but fun.  Between these activities which are really enjoyable but require brain power and thoughtful preparation along with the very deep conversations about the hard things going on locally and abroad, my emotional and physical energy feels quite spent.  So instead of going with a heavy topic for this post, I'm going to keep it light, very lite in fact.

I recently became aware of a low carb way to eat "spaghetti".  You may or may not have heard of a spaghetti squash, I've just recently been made aware of its existence.  My husband, who has been on quite a health kick, found a recipe and sent it to me many months ago, but it took me quite a while to actually fix it.  After regularly looking for this particular squash at my local Kroger to no avail, my sister was the one who finally found them and so kindly bought three for me.  Now, they're not cheap little suckers, they are $7 per squash and to be honest I was quite leery of what they were going to taste like, but let me just say, I was pleasantly surprised!  FYI-for our family of six, I think I could have gotten away with roasting just two squash, just to give you an idea of how many you'll need.  So, without further a do here's the skinny on how to prepare this light and delicious meal.

Preheat your oven to 400 F.

Cut the spaghetti squash in half.  (It will be tough to cut through, similar to a sweet potato.)  Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and pulp and discard.  Place the squash halves, cut side up, onto a baking sheet and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil, salt and pepper.

Turn the squash over, the cut side down and then roast until the flesh is tender, about 45 minutes to an hour.  Once cooked, use a fork to loosen the squash strands (it truly does look like spaghetti.)

Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil, ground pepper and a sprinkle of cheese. (You can reserve the the squash shells to serve your dish in or you can discard these too.)  As you can see, I didn't serve it in the shell, I thought I'd be a little less conspicuous in hopes that my kids would in deed eat it, and they did!!

While the squash was roasting I made an italian sausage bolognese sauce and let it simmer until I was ready to serve.  The meal was a total hit with everyone!  I'll definitely fix this again!

My family thankfully likes many vegetables, but its always nice to find another, more rare one that they equally love.  This is one of my most favorite meals that I've made from this past month, I highly recommend that you try it!  It was completely carb free for me and Adam, the multi grain bread (which I served the kids), instead of a white french baguette, was a great alternative.  It was light fare that was both healthy and delicious!