Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Today was a tired day! We had our friends from Dallas make a surprise visit last night, and took us to Sam's Boat where we ate way too much crawfish and other appetizers, listened to a pretty awesome band that was playing (Sheila Marshall, you can check out her page here), and had a few drinks. After we ran our bill at almost $200-eek!-, we decided to tab out and head back to Round Rock (just north of Austin where we live), and continued our drinking there for the majority of the night, and possibly morning... :). It was a blast, and it was so good to see Phillip and his girlfriend, Laci.

source: Sams Boat

Needless to say, work today was quite exhausting, and I was counting the minutes until I could go home and chillax! In good news, some of the managers decided to cook hot dogs for all of us in celebration of the Fourth of July weekend, and I LOVE me some hot dogs. Did you know July is actually National Hot Dog month?? Crazy!

Source: Hot Dog July


As soon as 8pm rolled around, I jet out of the office and straight home to get comfy! Since the only thing I had eaten all day was hot dogs, I knew I needed something healthy and with veggies.

Stuffed Spaghetti Squash


This is one of my favorite recipes to make, because it is not only yummy, and really healthy, but it's so filling - and when you live with a man, a good solid meal with lots of meat is a must! I found this recipe on Courtney's blog, Sweet Tooth Sweet Life, and it looked way too good to pass up! You can find her recipe here. I of course "Amanda-fied"  it a little to make it more meaty for my man. So away I got to cooking!

These are the ingredients I used. As you can see the chopped veggies are in bowls sitting on top of my cutting board. The world's SMALLEST cutting board ever! I seriously have to get a bigger one soon. :-P
The ingredients are very similar to Courtney's, but with a few slight changes.

Ingredients:

• 1 spaghetti squash, cut lengthwise
• 1 lb. ground turkey
• 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 2 celery stalks
• 1/2 cup tomatoes
• 1/2 cup zucchini
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 3/4 cup HEB spinach and cheese marinara sauce
• 1/2 cup italian blend cheese
• parmesan cheese
• Salt, pepper, and a Basil Garlic seasoning... and any other spices you like! 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375F. Halve the squash length-wise and scrape out the seeds. Courtney had boiled her spaghetti squash halves in a big pot, but I am limited on pots, so I baked mine for 40 minutes face down in a pan with about a 1/4c. water. Set aside to cool. (It will be super hot for at least 5 minutes)

In my skillet, first I browned the ground turkey, and put that aside once finished. I then put a tiny bit of oil in the skillet, and added the onions and minced garlic first, then added the other veggies slowly... the zucchini, celery, and tomatoes. 

beware: it smells soooooooo good!

It was smelling so good! I actually put a little bit of the spinach and cheese marinara sauce to give the veggies more of an italian flavor!

Is your mouth watering yet??

Once the squash was done baking, I took it out and started scraping the insides, and placed in a bowl with the meat, the sauteed veggies, and added more marinara sauce, the bread crumbs, and seasoning. I also put a half loaf of garlic cheesy bread in the oven for about 10 minutes to go with the meal. Just a note, but there are so many squash-noodles that came out, I only used about half, and put the other half in a tupperware to use for a later recipe this week! I also put the oven on broil for the next step.

I placed the stuffing back into the empty halves of the spaghetti squash, topped with the italian blend and parmesan  cheeses and placed in the oven for about 4-5 more minutes (at most, the broiler melts the cheese pretty quickly!).

And there you have it. The final product was absolutely delicious and so filling! It takes a little while to put together, but it's so yummy it's definitely worth it. 

nom nom nom!

look at that CHEESE!

 Great food on a budget:
1 Spaghetti Squash: $1.50
Marinara Sauce (of your choice): $1.89
1lb. Ground Turkey: $1.49
1 Zucchini: $.64
1 Pack of Celery: $1.28
1 Roma Tomato: $.68
1 Medium Sized Onion: $.59
1 Bag of Italian Style Cheese: $1.98

As for tonight, we're just taking it easy after such a long night last night. Probably going to jam out to some texas country and battle each other in Madden NFL 2011. :-) Have a great night!