O Spaghetti Squash, I Used To Hate You So ...

I've never been a fan of spaghetti squash. You know how sometimes when you eat a certain food it coats your teeth and makes them feel furry? Yes, that.

But my daughter and I have lost quite a bit of weight these past few weeks (see this post about the chicken insanity inspiration: http://www.pinkchihuahuacrafts.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-little-chicken-insanity.html) and I'm looking for low carb meals to enjoy while we're on the weight-stabilizing phase of our eating plan. We love pasta, but neither of us enjoy how we feel after we eat it - me especially. Wheat is an inflammatory food, and my knees always hurt muchly the day after a pasta dinner.

So I've convinced myself that I'm going to learn to like spaghetti squash. I'm going to look past the furry teeth and try to move beyond the slippery noodles that don't hold the sauce and learn to love this low calorie, low carb vehicle for pasta sauce.

This is the dish I made earlier this week. (Link to recipe here - this is not my original recipe or my excellent food photography: http://blog.tastefulpantry.com/2014/01/21/spaghetti-squash-lasagna-bowls-gf/)






And you know what? My teeth didn't feel furry, the sauce clung nicely to the squash strands, and I almost felt like I was eating pasta! My middle grandson (who is 5) loved it. We didn't tell him he was eating squash until he was finished, but he guessed. I'm pretty sure he'll eat it again. Maybe it wasn't cooked enough when I've had it in the past? Maybe I just wasn't old enough? (Although if  5-year old can eat it and like it, seems like being in my 50s would be plenty old enough.) The 3-year old didn't like it, but oddly enough, he ate the squash, not the chicken and sauce. And the 14-year old would eat the guinea pig, the Chihuahua Brothers and the cat if I cooked them and served them with ketchup, so I wasn't surprised he ate this.

Whatever the reason I like spaghetti squash now, I'm glad. Because tonight, we're having this:






Except I'm subbing Italian turkey sausage for the chickpeas. (recipe here because this is also NOT my recipe or food photography: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2011/01/spaghetti-squash-roasted-brussels-sprouts-chickpeas.html)