Creative Cookery with Carolyn -- Spaghetti Squash

[paragraphs]

I love it when people post what they are cooking/eating on their lj's. I love food, and over the last months have learned to control it rather than it control me. The best part of eating the way I do now is that it has taught me to have fun and experiment, often with limited ingredients (despite going to the store constantly).

Today's creation? Spaghetti Squash Beef Bake. Spaghetti squash, some hamburger w/onion, crushed tomatoes, muenster cheese (because that is what I had cheese-wise)...everything was pre-cooked except the cheese, then tossed into a 425 degree oven in my fav baking dish that I found recently under my son's couch in the loft. Reunion was sweet!

It was really really good. The pics are slightly blurry, but it was really, really good. Need to break out my camera next time! If you've always wondered about spaghetti squash, which looks like a big pale yellow dinosaur egg (and great fun to split open) you should try it. It is packed full of stringy goodness.

Comments

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

I wonder if one could mail a spaghetti squash to you? And that is why I eat them too--just can't do lots of pasta, but can do lots of this. I would think they'd mail great! I had mine for about a week and a half before eating it. LOL.

Now, THAT is an interesting recipe. Seriously. I don't at all mine doing repeat food. I do it all the time, with just me, sometimes the daughter, to cook for. Tomorrow's lunch will my spaghetti squash stuff, but no oven there so I will just have to microwave it.

I am very intrigued by your ingredients!

[aseas-words.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that spaghetti squash would be considered "produce" and would be rejected by Customs. They don't even allow fruit tea into the country. You never know what kind of famine-inducing pests Americans might be sending over in the packaged lemon tea!

Yeah, the nice thing about winter squash (acorn, spaghetti, pumpkin, hubbard, butternut, etc.) is that it keeps for a long time. My mom used to buy two or three bushels of winter squash to keep next to the potatoes, onions, carrots, and apples in our very mildly heated food storage room for the winter, and they'd stay good until spring. Well, that's the theory, anyway. We always ate all of them before spring.

My favorite way to cook is to go outside, see what good produce the Tajik guy is selling off the back of his truck today, buy whatever looks good, and come home to try to figure out how best to consume it. Most of it ends up in various types of salads, but occasionally I make a stew or soup or something from them. Like this one.

I've been experimenting a lot lately with the combination of "savory" spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves) and "spicy" things (onions, garlic, hot pepper). It's a very interesting and satisfying combination. Reminiscent of Moroccan food, especially when I add raisins and nuts.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! I wish I could buy like that. Seriously. If I ever move, being where I could get local produce and shop at a market will be HIGH on the list.

I love your recipe and am absolutely going to make it soon.

[aseas-words.livejournal.com]

Do you need an idea of proportions, like how much of each thing I put in?

Let me know how you like it!

Hey, you could always move here. ;-)

Cardiff has a reasonable market, too. I think you mentioned whizzing through it at one point.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

Sigh, back in Texas now, but yes, we whizzed through it! Nick wouldn't let me look hard though. LOL.

Mmm proportion-wise I just kinda winged it. Small spaghetti-squash, 16 ozs. tomatoes...a pound of burger? which of course what is shown is only a portion of it.

MOVE THERE? uh uh nooo that okay! LOL. I'd love to read more of your adventuring though! Russia through your eyes!

[aseas-words.livejournal.com]

I'm working on "A Day in the Life of... in Russia" right now, actually. So you might get your Russia story by the end of the week.

I was actually wondering whether you needed proportions for my recipe. ;-)

I don't know if I could manage to be content in a place with no fresh produce markets. They've been a staple of my cooking everywhere I've lived. Sometime I do hope to do away with them and grow my own food for the most part, but that's a long-away dream, along with border collies and lots of things for them to herd (goats, sheep, children...). In the meantime I strike up friendships with farmers and importers. The Tajik guy parks his truck of produce outside my house every day. And he thinks I'm from Germany, even though EVERY time I see him I tell him I'm American. Heh.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

Proportions would be great though I am a total wing-it type too. Either way. I am just so intrigued by the whole list, and long for a cold Saturday morning to get up, run to the store and get everything, then cook that mornign to eat all weekend. LOL.

I grew up here, got married here, brought/am bringing up the kids here. I have a very nice job here too, that I love 95% of the time...it would be difficult to move, but I long to live by the sea, preferably with Nick, preferably where it is cooler in the winter, with lovely places to walk my huskies.

Sigh.

LOL German! Ah well. Do you also speak German then? :)

[aseas-words.livejournal.com]

one medium eggplant, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 hubbard squash, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes (actually, butternut would be better, in which case use 1 whole one)
one medium zucchini or large pattipan squash, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 sweet red peppers, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, minced
3 medium onions onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons fresh ginger, grated or minced (if you have a food processor I'd throw the ginger and the garlic in together and mince them that way)
3 spicy sausages, parboiled and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces

all cut up and thrown into a baking dish and then doused with:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp cloves
1 Tbsp chili powder
1/4 cup sunflower seed oil
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup honey
if you want it to be more like soup than baked veg, add 2 cups of water

cover tightly and bake until everything is soft, roughly 1.5 hours at 275 degrees (F). Serve with raisins and walnuts, or a dollop of sour cream, or some shredded cheese. :-)




No, I don't speak a lick of German, though I read a very very little bit. It's the next language I'd like to learn, though. I look kind of German, though, (I am 1/4 German) and it's inconceivable for an American to be all the way over here, so they always guess I'm English or Finnish or German. German more than usual lately. Heh.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

I actually got some great reactions of 'You're an American!' when I was in Wales. That was fun! Nick is the one who usually gets the attention but not this time. *beams*

Thanks for the details! This truly is going to be quite a feast!