Spaghetti squash with oven roasted tomatoes

K and I do our weekly grocery shopping from the Farmers Market at Dekalb. The produce section of the market offers hundreds of varieties of vegetables from around the world.
Recently, we decided to buy one never-before-tried vegetable every trip we make to the market.
We've started with Spaghetti squash. We had no clue how to cook it or for that matter what it looked like even! I must admit, the final product was just too awesome. And if you didn't know (like us), you don't need spaghetti to cook this pasta. The fruit is unique..once cooked, it can be seperated into spaghetti-like strands with a fork.


For more about the vegetable, click here.










Spaghetti squash



Spaghetti squash with oven roasted tomatoes

• Cut the squash and remove the seeds (The fruit is very hard and woody when raw, so be sure to get a sharp knife!)
• Slice the Roma tomatoes
  
• Hit the squash and tomatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper and italian spices (dried parsley, thyme, oregano)
  
• Preheat the oven to 375ºF and bake the squash (facing down) and tomatoes for 40-50 mts (I did it for 50 mts and the sides were slightly burnt but with no damage to the taste). You could remove the tomatoes slighly earlier.

• In a seperate pan, add olive oil, minced garlic, and some red pepper flakes
• Once cooked, add the oven roasted tomatoes, add salt and sauté.
• Remove spaghetti-like squash strands with a fork and add it to the pan.

• Toss the strands with the tomatoes and add a chiffonnade of basil (you can add a spoon of basil pesto too!)
• Savor the sweet taste of the squash with the concentrated flavor of tomatoes. Will truly make for an interesting and easy meal!
  

Spaghetti squash with oven roasted tomatoes.