Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Baked Spaghetti Squash with Gruyere and Parsley


Deborah Madison's book Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is one of my more neglected cookbooks.  I guess I just usually go for a different type of recipe - but this book has lots of hidden gems, like the Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce which my mom's freezer is now literally full of.

I have always wanted to try spaghetti squash, but since I have never been a huge fan of pasta with plain old tomato sauce, I wanted to try something different with it.  I just received a great deal of squash from my CSA and I'm so excited to use it.  I was going through a few of my books (this is how I stumbled upon the Apple Squash Soup as well) and the Baked Spaghetti Squash with Gruyere and Parsley caught my eye, particularly the Gruyere, possibly my all time favorite cheese.  I couldn't resist!

This took so long to make, but practically NO effort whatsoever.  The spaghetti squash has to bake for quite a while, about an hour, but be careful not to overdo it or you won't get the stringiness, more like a fibrous mash.  You may want to turn it over halfway through so you don't end up with a soft dark spot on the bottom.  The rest of the work is a snap: grate Gruyere, press garlic, chop parsley.  Done!  We started that last bit of prep work when the timer read 8 minutes left, and were done by the time it went off.  While the squash was in the oven I did some reading for my Employment Law class.  This is just one of those recipes that proves eating healthy is possible for even the busiest people.

A few notes: the 2-4 tablespoons of butter that this recipe calls for is just way too much.  A small pat will do just fine (and save you calories).  You don't even need so much Gruyere.  Next time I might add a bit of everything at a time and taste as I go to make sure I don't overdo it.  Also, this is definitely a side dish.  We thought it would be nice with a piece of tilapia or some garlic shrimp - we ended up having the leftovers with a piece of salmon and some leftover roasted vegetables.

1 comment:

  1. http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2780?utm_source=Responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=09_22_10_Recipe

    This recipe from Whole Foods says to bake the squash for 30-35 minutes (although they do cut it in half also). But do keep an eye on it and try not to overcook.

    ReplyDelete