Dinner Ideas

Pasta alternatives:

So for all of you pasta lovers out there, stop worrying about counting carbs!! Angela showed me an alternative. Make Spaghetti Squash your new best friend. ANY pasta dish you used to love, remove the pasta and replace with squash cooked like this:

Take a spaghetti squash and cut in half the long way. Place the two halves face down on a cookie sheet greased with olive oil. Cook in a 375* oven for 30-45 min, or until the squash will bend. Once the squash had cooled, take a spoon and pull the squash, and you will see that it will string like spaghetti! pull all of the meat of the squash until you are down to the skin, and then cover with your favorite sauce! Make sure if you are buying pre-made sauce that you check the ingredients and can read what everything is! Also, make sure that the sugar and sodium content isn't too high!

Its pretty easy to make your own sauce too!

Sauce:
Begin with sauteing garlic and onions in olive oil (how I start almost EVERY recipe), and add whatever meat (or tofu, yes its good in sauce). Sautee until the meat is brown. Sprinkle basil, and any other seasonings you like over the meat. Add a can of crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and chopped tomatoes. Let simmer for 15-20 min.

Here's another one that Angela and I tried the other night.

No Way You'll Have Leftover Lasagna:

Take a Spaghetti Squash and cook the same way as above. While this bakes, sautee some garlic and red onion in olive oil. If you are feeling really dicey that day, add some fresh basil leaves. Once the onion is browned, add 2 cans of stewed tomatoes and let it all get happy. Salt and pepper to taste ;-)

Once the squash is cooked, string like above and save empty shells. You will bake the lasagna in those! Take shells and spoon the sauce you made into the bottom. The next layer is the spaghetti squash noodles that you pulled out of the shells. Then use cottage cheese as the next layer (yes, it tastes amazing), a little Parmesan cheese on top of that. Then sliced black olives, then a layer of cooked chicken breast, or ground turkey! Keep layering until the shell is full! Make sure cheese is your last layer! Bake at 350* for 20 minutes.

nom. nom. nom.