By Dana McMahan
FoodConnect Louisville
dana@foodconnect.com

Meet the Magical Vegetable That Thinks it's a Pasta

One of the best parts about the farm share I’m participating in this summer is the way I’m forced to try new foods. This past week I received a spaghetti squash which seemed almost like a mythical food to me— I’ve never prepared it, never eaten it, and have it somehow twirled up in my mind with the 1957 BBC Swiss Spaghetti Harvest hoax on April Fool’s Day in England. This three minute TV segment, which convinced a nation that Switzerland was in the midst of a spaghetti bumper crop, concluded with the line, “For those who love this dish, there’s nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti.”

Well, spaghetti in a squash seems only a step removed from spaghetti growing on trees, but confronted with this odd vegetable in my share this week, I decided to make the most of it.

Spaghetti squash is a winter squash, Chinese in origin, that is so-named because of the way its meat combs out into perfect spaghetti-like strands. It’s uncanny, really. I thought about tossing it with a tomato sauce but that didn’t seem very imaginative. I love a brown butter sage sauce with winter squash, so I decided to take that route.

Because I don’t turn my oven on when it’s this hot out, I decided to try cooking it in my slow cooker. I cut it in half (carefully!) with my butcher knife, scooped out the seeds and stringy stuff (reserving the seeds) and dropped in into water to simmer for about three hours. At this point I was too curious to wait so I finished it in the microwave, sitting in some water in a bowl that was covered in plastic. I was careful to let it cool a few minutes before raking out the “spaghetti.”

Meanwhile I cooked up nearly a stick of butter, letting all the foam cook away and turn brown, then threw in a few chopped sage leaves. I raked the spaghetti out of the squash — incredibly easy, and fun, to see the vegetable magically turn to pasta before my eyes. — and tossed it in the butter sauce. Then I stirred in some parmesan and topped with toasted walnuts.

On paper this sounds good. In reality, not so much. I think it could have been good if I’d roasted the squash, or done a better job of draining the water. I also didn’t cook the squash long enough so it still had a crisp texture, not at all like pasta.

I’ll definitely try again — I’m sure this won’t be my last experiment with spaghetti squash.

Oh, and the seeds? Rinse them well, dry, drizzle with olive oil and sea salt and pop in the toaster oven on 325 for 25 minutes for a delicious snack!