Thursday, October 28, 2010

Cheesy Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti squash and I have a long and sordid history. I first discovered it when I first left the parental nest and struck out on my own. Spaghetti squash was being touted as a great alternative to spaghetti, and I fell for that line. So I tried to serve it the same way I served spaghetti - with spaghetti sauce.

It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't all that good, either. It wasn't real spaghetti, and it wasn't a good use of the vegetable. So, for a long time, I ignored it.

When I rediscovered spaghetti squash, I looked at it a whole different way. I stopped thinking of it as a pasta alternative and started treating it like a vegetable. That doesn't mean I don't use sauces when they're appropriate. But they're sauces that complement the squash.

One of my favorite ways to eat it is with simple browned butter and sage. But this time I tried something completely different. I had about a cup of cheese sauce left over from some steak sandwiches I had made. The sauce was pretty simple. I started with a roux, added milk, then added colby cheddar cheese.

For the squash, I cut it in half, put it cut-side down on a baking sheet and cooked it until it was done, then scooped it out. I had the cheese sauce reheated in a pan, added the squash, and stirred to coat it with the sauce. It needed a bit more salt, then I added some white pepper, and that was it.

Cheese isn't the first thing you might think of with squash, but it worked really well with the spaghetti squash. For sure I'd make this again.
Yum

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Try spaghetti squash hash browns. Add an egg and bread crumbs, salt and pepper to cooked spaghetti squash and fry them in patties like potato pancakes. Yum. You can add parmesan to them as well.

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