Veggies 101: How to Roast Spaghetti Squash

With the holidays coming up, I wanted to share a favorite fall-time basic recipe: How to roast spaghetti squash. This is a veggies 101 post that is simple, but really necessary for every household. Growing up, spaghetti squash was a staple in my mothers home. As I got older a lot of people I would talk to absolutely despised spaghetti squash, and then when I ate it at their house I realized why so many people disliked the squash. It’s a squash that definitely has to be done the right way.

Preheat oven to 425.

First you’ll want to find a fairly large squash, and chop the stem off. Carefully cut the squash into two halves, trying to cut it as evenly as possible (yes, much easier said than done).

Scoop out the seeds and stringy innards with a spoon and discard. (The seeds also roast up nicely like pumpkin seeds.)

Drizzle each half with about 1½ teaspoons olive oil, and sprinkle with salt a pepper. I like to use garlic salt, but normal salt is perfectly fine.

Place squash face down on a foil lined baking sheet. Place in oven and bake for 35-45 minutes.

Check on squash at about 35 minutes. It should start to look dark brown and easily pierced with a fork. Let cool for 10 minutes and shred the squash with a fork. It should come out looking like long “spaghetti-like” strings.

Now comes the DIY part. You can really do anything you’d like here, but a few of the essentials need to be 1) garlic, 2) melted butter, 3) one or two herbs and 4) crushed red pepper. I used fresh basil from my garden that had been frozen in butter, and some rosemary. Growing up my mom would use whatever fresh herb she had on hand. My favorites were always fresh rosemary or dill. Mmmm. So customize it, give it some flare!

Once your spaghetti squash is all strung out, put it in a bowl and add the 2 tablespoons of melted butter, ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes, 2 teaspoons of minced garlic, 2 teaspoons of dried rosemary and your chopped fresh basil. Mix well and salt and pepper to taste.

Roasted Spaghetti Squash

Recipe by The Everyday Veggies 

1 large spaghetti squash

1 Tablespoon olive oil, divided

Salt and pepper

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons garlic, minced

2 teaspoons dried rosemary

1 teaspoon chopped basil, fresh

1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 425.

2. Chop the stem off, and carefully cut the squash lengthwise into two halves. Scoop out the innards and discard. Drizzle each half of the squash with 1 1/2 teaspoons of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. 

3. Place squash face down on baking sheet and roast for 35-45 minutes, or until its looking brown, and easily pierced with a fork. Let cool for 10 minutes. Once cool enough to handle, shred the squash with a fork. It will come out looking like long spaghetti like strings. 

4. Place in medium sized mixing bowl and add the red pepper flakes, melted butter, garlic, rosemary chopped basil and salt. Serve immediately. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Savory Apple Cheddar Cobbler

Several years ago I ran across this recipe for apple cheddar soup. It sounded a little weird, but I thought it was worth a try. It became a fall staple and I look forward to making it every autumn.

I've been really interested in making a savory cobbler for the past few months but hadn't gotten around to it. This year I was buying the ingredients for my favorite apple cheddar soup and wondered if it might make a tasty cobbler.

Well folks, I'm pleased to tell you that the answer is yes. I've been toying around with this recipe for the past month (and eaten A LOT of cobbler as leftovers), but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

It is POMEGRANATE SEASON!! Superfood Pancakes (Cocoa Pomegranate Pancake)

Collette here. I'm back with another pancake variation. This time, we use our same base recipe (found here, here, and here), and load these pancakes with cocoa and pomegranate making these the antioxidant breakfast of champions. Also, I LOVE pomegranates. In fact, we sisters grew up with quite the pomegranate farmer (our dad) and large pomegranate tree in our back yard. We take our pomegranates very seriously.

Pomegranates (and we have just hit their peak season!) are loaded with nutrients like fiber, protein, vitamins C and K, folate and potassium. They have have punicalagins and punicic acid (powerful antioxidants) and pomegranate juice has 3 times the antioxidant activity as red wine and green tea (according to advanced Biomed Research Journal and my wicked smart med school brother-in-law).

This is what the arils look like once removed.

Dark chocolate, especially in the form of cocoa with all of its polyphenols, is an amazing source of antioxidants. Like, better than most fruits. Check this out from the mayo clinic. 

So why do we care about these antioxidants anyway? Antioxidants eat up free radicals. Free radicals are any atom or molecule that are missing an electron in their outer membrane (or an unpaired electron); they will do anything they can to fill that space including harmful damage to DNA, proteins, and cell membranes in order to get that missing electron and feel zen about their little chemical/molecular lives.

Simply put, we need to hold on to our electrons and not gift them to free radicals (or any chemicals) and avoid oxidation in our cells. These (not always) can have the potential to become cancerous cells (among other things). So, to avoid oxidation we need to load up on foods rich in antioxidants to help eat up those cells that can cause us harm. All of my sciences geeks...check this out!

Ok, now on to the food. :)

Broccoli 'Cheese' Soup

Fall is here and that means lots of soup in our house. I love soup. It is warm, filling, full of veggies, and my toddler always slurps them up. A favorite fall soup of my families is Broccoli Cheese, or Broccoli Cheddar soup. I always have a hard time making them though because they are chalked full of things like "processed cheese food" or others words like "cheese product." I just can't do it, because cheese shouldn't come in a can or look like plastic. So after a few trial and error products I finally came up with a recipe that we love and has no "fake" cheese product, loads of butter, or flour! I went with my trusty sweet potato base from this recipe.

Veggie Packed Taco Salad

When my husband and I first got married, it also happened to be the time that Taco Bell released their new green “Salsa Verde” sauce. I have always had a strange love/hate relationship with the food chain, but after that green sauce came out, it was definitely leaning towards more of a love thing.

We only went to the food chain about once every quarter, but we would always get massive amounts of the little green packages. Some to take home, and others to pour all over our iceberg lettuce topped taco-bell meals (like tostadas, hard tacos, and seven-layer burritos). Mmmmmm. Those were the days.

I has been about about two years since I’ve been to Taco Bell and the other day I was thinking about it and I got this strange craving for a ground beef taco covered in crisp iceberg lettuce and a drizzle of sour cream. There is just a distinct smell and taste that comes with that combo, and I was craving it something fierce.

The following day my sister Natalie texted me about an amazing ground beef taco filling she had created; about 10 minutes later I stumbled upon Taco Salad Skillet dinner from Budget Bytes. It was like the world of Mexican food was speaking to me, and so this dish was created.