Spaghetti – Fervent Foodie

Well that was…. odd…

September 1, 2011 14 Comments

Tonight I pose an age old question.

If it looks like spaghetti and meatballs…

and smells like spaghetti and meatballs….

and twirls on your fork like spaghetti and meatballs…

does it TASTE like spaghetti and meatballs???

Hmmmmm……..

Tonight’s dinner was courtesy of 3 factors:

1.) Poor planning and insufficient food purchasing during my weekly grocery shopping trip.

2.) Insufficient time and energy to make a second grocery shopping trip.

and

3.) 3 random ingredients I happened to have on hand each of which was purchased (no doubt) during a hunger induced trip to the grocery store where lots of little odds and ends somehow ended up in my cart despite not being on my list and have since been sitting collecting dust (or freezer burn, as the case may be) in my kitchen.

So what’s a hungry gal to do?

Make spaghetti meatballs of course! Err… well sort of anyway.

I’m guessing most of you probably consider diced tomatoes to be a fairly normal pantry staple. I on the other hand LOATHE them (unless they are sufficiently masked in a recipe). So tonight when I dumped the can of diced tomatoes into the pot I seasoned it LIBERALLY with anything Italian-ish in hopes of covering up their weird tinny taste.

Then I popped six Trader Joes meatless meatballs into the sauce and let it all simmer away.

Next it was on to the Shirataki noodles. I first saw these on the Hungry Girl show on Food Network and have been anxious to try them ever since. Tofu noodles?? 40 calories for the whole bag??? How could you not be intrigued?

The instructions said to rinse the noodles, drain, then microwave, and pat dry. Easy enough! I followed each step diligently, and as I went to pop them into the microwave I caught a whif of this funky nose curling scent. I paused eyes scanning the room as I tried to determine what on earth had gone awry in my kitchen, and then I realized it was the noodles I was preparing to ingest. They smelled. Like garbage. No… Like rotting fish that had been sitting out in the sun for a few hours.

Do to the stench, I decided it’d be best to give the noodles an extra super thorough rinse. Funny how I was still more than willing to eat the noodles… I mean.. 40 calorie noodles, people! You gotta be willing to give a little with the take!

After nuking them in microwave for a minute I dried the crap out of them (and most of the stench) with a few paper towels.

I combined these 3 random ingredients on my plate, and VOILA!! I had spaghetti and meatballs! Or more appropriately named Tofu Noodle Substitute and Meatless Meatballs! Has a nice ring to it, eh?

Bet you’re wondering if it was any good huh??

Well this is what my plate looked like at the end of dinner:

Guess that pretty much sums it up! Clearly, the highlight of this meal was the meatless meatballs. They got pretty soft once cooked (but managed to still hold together). I might try baking them in the oven next time to see if they firm up at all. Regardless, I’d definitely give two thumbs up on the meatless meatballs!

And the noodles were… ehhhh.. It’s not that they tasted “bad” per se, but they had this really ODD texture. Really rubbery. I guess it just felt wrong in my mouth. Like my belly was saying “please, please, please for the love of all that is edible do not ingest those things!”

So I didn’t cuz when my belly talks, I sure as hell listen.

And now I think a cupcake is in order Winking smile

Baked Spaghetti (Squash)

January 11, 2011 9 Comments

When I was trying to decide what my belly wanted for dinner, it didn’t take me long to start salivating at the idea of some oven baked pasta with some melty cheese and garlic bread.

Ohhhh yes.

I’m kind of obsessed with spaghetti squash these days, so any time I’m looking to cure a pasta craving in a healthful way, it’s my go-to-gourd. Okkkk… so it’s a squash, not a gourd (and yes I googled it).

I can remember being a young teenager and watching my mom scrape out spaghetti squash as the rest of the family piled mounds and mounds of traditional spaghetti noodles on our plates. Back then, I didn’t get it. And, I was wayyyyyy to stubborn to even taste the squash. Even when my mom swore up and down it tasted good, I wanted NOTHING to do with it.

Ohhhhh how the tables turn.

Over the past year or so, spaghetti squash has become a weekly staple in my meal planning. I’ve made it with turkey, chicken, sausage, veggies, chili… I even tried to use it as a pizza crust once, though that didn’t turn out nearly as well as I had hoped. One thing I’ve never tried is using spaghetti squash to make an oven-baked pasta dish. Tonight was the night my friends!

First up, I preheated the oven to 375 degrees. I oh-so-carefully sliced the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise, scooped out the seeds, then sprinkled on some salt and pepper. I put the squash halves cut side down on a cookie sheet that I had sprayed with cooking spray. Into the oven for 30 minutes (for a smaller squash, check for doneness after 20 minutes).

Meanwhile, I cooked up 4 ounces of 99% fat free turkey breast in a small skillet. Once the turkey was white, I tossed the turkey onto a plate to hang out.

Meanwhile, I chopped up 4 baby bella mushrooms and some red onion and minced up 3 cloves of garlic and sautéed in the same skillet I used for the turkey.

Once the veggies were soft and onions were caramelized, I added 1 cup of Nature’s Basket Garlic tomato sauce, tossed the turkey back in, and then seasoned everything up with some garlic powder, dried oregano, red pepper flakes, black pepper, and onion powder.

I let the sauce simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes.

Around that time the spaghetti squash was done, so I used a fork to scrape out all the squash leaving the squash strands in the skin rather than dumping onto a plate.

Next, I tossed 1/2 of the sauce onto each of the squash halves, then topped each with 1 lite babybel cheese round that I had roughly chopped up in my food processor.

Spaghetti squash + yum-o sauce + babybel

Into the 400 degree oven for about 7 minutes (until the cheese was mellllllty!):

For my “garlic bread” I sliced up half of a ciabatta roll, and topped each half with a couple squirts of butter spray, garlic powder, onion powder, dried oregano, and a bit of parmesan cheese. Then I popped them into the oven for five minutes until the cheese was melted and the bread was crisp

Xtreme amount of grub:

Strike that… Xtreme amount of DELICIOUS grub:

You know that look Homer Simpson gets when he sees a doughnut? You know, eyes rolled back into the head and quivering lips with drool running down? That’s how I look when I look at this picture:

WOWZA.

Stats on one half of the baked spaghetti squash with 1/2 of the meat sauce and cheesy goodness: 281 calories, 35 g carbs, 7g fat, 26g protein, 8g fiber.