This Spaghetti Ain’t Squashed

Winter’s been quite severe so far, what with our area’s first blizzard of the 21st century and foot-upon-foot of snow and ice.

Brr. It was fun when the snow first came down but after that, not so much.

Weather like that makes one yearn for steamy food, doesn’t it? So this holiday season, I cooked what is fast becoming a Burke family “heirloom-in-waiting”; a marinara sauce my brother-in-law learned of from a friend, and that I’ve been experimenting with as well. It’s delish.

Unfortunately you’re not getting that recipe from me today.

Not because I’m being selfish, but mostly because I don’t have any photographs of it, and it deserves to be seen as well as eaten.

What I do think you should try to make, though, is this extremely easy and tasty recipe from Martha Rose Shulman for spaghetti squash. It’s incredible. I’ve started cooking it in place of pasta to go with the marinara. In fact, I don’t know if I’ll ever eat pasta again, when spaghetti squash is such a delicious and healthful alternative.

So try this out, and then you’ll be ready for the Burke marinara to really kick your taste buds into high gear.

Tip: since the bulk of your cooking time will be spent in baking the spaghetti squash prior to sauteing, I highly recommend pre-cooking (i.e. the baking part) a couple of squashes at the same time. Then divide it into portions (i.e. what you’ll need for one meal) and freeze it in several containers.

You can zap it in minutes in the microwave when you feel like eating it again, and you won’t have to spend all that time on prep, nor defrost and then refreeze it because you defrosted too much to begin with.

Manga!

Image: Macheesmo