Spaghetti!

With squash of course.

My life is pretty chaotic through the week – CrossFit at 7, class at 9, clinic 10-5, work 6-9:30 or 6:30-10:30 most nights.  There isn’t a whole lot of room for meal preparation in there, so I try to prepare big batches of dinners to eat throughout the week.  Valerie’s pasta salad started a craving for spaghetti, so I snagged a GIANT 5-pound squash and got to it:

That’s what a 5-pound squash looks like in my microwave btw.  Hipster roommate posted about it here! (That’s her!)

It was pretty straightforward to make: microwave squash for about 3 minutes to soften.  Cut in half, scoop out the yuck in the middle, and brush with olive oil.  Roast at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes (I like to flip mine over halfway through) or until it’s fork-tender and easily makes “noodles.”

For the sauce, I browned about a pound of mild bulk italian sausage in a large skillet, then added two chopped green peppers (they were small ones) and a chopped onion to the pan.  Once the veggies had softened up and cooked in the grease for a little while, I added some sliced white mushrooms and poured in a jar of ready-made all-natural pasta sauce I had picked up at the store.  I let everything simmer while the squash was roasting and that was it!   This one was great because the sauce contained nothing I wouldn’t have added myself: “Vine-Ripened Plum Tomatoes, Tomato Puree, Lucini® Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Carrots, Onions, Basil, Sea Salt” (and citric acid, but whatev) and then I just added more veggies to it.  It’s a great way to up the veggie content of meals and sauces without making things too complicated.  Spinach would have been a great add-in here too, but I was saving mine for my morning scrambled eggs.

Here’s what it looked like when it was all done.  It tasted just as good as it looks, and yes, it is even better a few days later!

Spaghetti Squash Caprese Salad

Ever since going primal I have struggled with figuring out what to eat for lunch.  Right now I go home for lunch every day, so I don’t have to be organized, but starting in June I’m going to have to be packing lunches again.

My ideal lunch is something that I can make a big batch of at the beginning of the week and that doesn’t require heating up.  I can only eat so much chicken salad, so will be testing out new recipes for the next few months!

I was craving pasta salad, so I decided to make a healthy version with spaghetti squash instead.  I really liked how this turned out, I will most definitely be making it again!

Spaghetti Squash Caprese Salad
1 Large Spaghetti Squash
1 lb. Chicken Breasts
8 oz. Mozzarella Cheese
2 Plum Tomatoes
4 Cloves Garlic (or less if you don’t like garlic!)
1/4 C. Olive Oil
Fresh Chopped Basil
Balsamic Vinegar to taste

Boil chicken for an hour in water that has been seasoned with garlic powder.  You can cook it however you want, but boiling it is a pretty foolproof way to make sure it doesn’t dry out.

Microwave spaghetti squash about 3 minutes to make it easier to cut.  Split it in half and scoop out the seeds.  Rub olive oil inside each half and bake at 425 for 40 minutes, turning halfway through.

Chop the cheese, tomatoes, garlic, and basil.  When the squash and chicken are finished cooking, let them cool and add them to a bowl.  Add the olive oil and everything else you have chopped.  Toss everything together until well combined.

Drizzle balsamic vinegar over each serving.

This made a fairly large portion-hopefully enough to last for lunch for the week.  Possibly because I didn’t realize until I was checking out that the spaghetti squash was 4.5 pounds!