Spaghetti Squash

Our Minnesota vegetable garden is coming to its end. I am still processing it, but we have actually had our first frost...s. That's my dramatic way of making the word "frost" plural.

We had a lot of good crops, though sadly, the squash was not among them. While wee planted 3 different varieties, only the spaghetti squash grew. Two of them were harvested and we had the first one for dinner on Sunday night.

This squash was deliciously sweet and full of flavor.

Squash is one of the foods I have had to work hard to like. I never liked it growing up, but as I grew older the vegetable grew more enticing. Joel and I have experimented with many different recipes and ingredients and have found the best ingredient to add if your squash isn't tasting so great is brown sugar. When I give squash to Rosemary I add so much brown sugar that it tastes like candy. I would rather have a fattening vegetable than no vegetable at all.

Brown sugar with spaghetti squash, however, is not so good. Joel and I actually wrote spaghetti squash off for many years, though it was admittedly more because of the texture than the taste. Then, a few years ago, my mom informed me that spaghetti squash is best when eaten like ... wait for it ... spaghetti.

I know it's called spaghetti squash, but for some bizarre reason, this idea was absolutely genius to me. And now, this squash is among my favorites.

I didn't follow an actual recipe, but it's pretty simple. Here's what I did.

Heat the oven to 400. Cut the squash in half and scoop out all the squashy/seedy stuff. Place face down on a cookie sheet and cook roughly a half hour until the tops are brown.

I had turkey bratwurst on hand, so I cooked them up and heated up some store-bought spaghetti sauce. I scooped out the squash, sliced up the bratwurst, and topped it with the sauce and some Parmesan cheese. It was so good that even my picky little Rosemary gobbled it down!