Baked spaghetti squash that takes hassle out of cooking
A few years ago when everyone I knew was on the Paleo diet, I started making spaghetti squash and topping it with meat sauce to feed my dinner party guests who were off carbs. I grew up eating spaghetti squash with butter and Parmesan cheese, so I have always had a taste for it, and more and more it seems an easy way to get an extra vegetable into my diet.
But, spaghetti squash is hard to cut. That deters a lot of people I know from buying it and baking it as a delicious side dish or as a pasta substitute. One night last fall, my sister and I were discussing this and decided to experiment with cooking the squash whole and removing the seeds after cooking it.
We weren't sure it would work, or how difficult it would be to remove the seeds once it was baked. Turns out, it was easy. We baked the squash for an hour in a preheated 350-degree oven. After an hour, we turned off the heat and let the squash continue baking in the residual heat for 30 minutes. You can tell if it is done if a small thin knife sticks into the squash as easily as room temperature butter. Take care not to overcook the squash - you want the squash to retain its shape and not collapse on itself.
When the resting time was up, the squash was very soft and you could easily cut it in half lengthwise. The seeds were also simple to remove with a spoon - no more difficult than removing them from an uncooked squash.
I raked a fork across the length of the half of squash and it instantly fell into strands. I lightly dressed the strands with olive oil, chopped herbs and grated Parmesan cheese and placed it in a bowl. You could serve it like this as a side dish or add a quick meat sauce for an easy and healthy one-bowl meal.
• Elizabeth Karmel is a barbecue and Southern foods expert. She is the chef and pitmaster at online retailer CarolinaCueToGo.com and the author of three books, including "Taming the Flame."