From the Garden Plot to the Kitchen Pot

There is a really big push to buy local.  We like that.  Local could mean buying food grown by farmers in your town.  Or it could mean growing it yourself and walking right outside your backdoor, harvesting what you need, using mostly ingredients that you grew, and preparing a delicious meal.  We like to do that.  In fact, we'll do that today.  Come along as we walk out to the melon patch.

If you look in the center of the picture you'll see a yellow looking item.

What is it?

Well, this is a spaghetti squash and we'll show you in just a minute why it got its name.  The way you know that a spaghetti squash is ripe is if its skin is completely yellow with no green showing and if you can push your fingernail on the skin and it is hard and doesn't leave a mark.  This one passed the test, so we'll break it off and bring inside.

A ripened spaghetti squash

Let's prepare it for cooking.  Basically it is a simple task.  Cut off the stem and cut the spaghetti squash in half.  Then get a big spoon and scoop out all of the seeds from the center.

Halved spaghetti squash

Now you could just throw the refuse in the compost pile OR you could save the seeds, soak them and then bake them with some salt and spices.  We like to eat the seeds like this.  Alternatively, since these are open pollinated, heirloom seeds, you can save a few, dry them, and save them for seeds to grow another crop this fall since this is a winter squash.  

Scoopin' out the seeds

Put a little water in the bottom of a pan and place your squash 'meat side' down in the pan in the oven and bake at 375 for 1 hour.

Into the oven

Meanwhile, we'll prepare something to go on top of our spaghetti squash while we're waiting on it to cook. We select some red ripe tomatoes fresh-picked off the vine. They are heavy, bursting with juice and flavor and will be the perfect accompaniment to our spaghetti squash.

Fresh homegrown tomatoes

We're aiming for simplicity here.  We're using a recipe from the New York Times called 

Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce that we found: Here 

We select tomatoes that will yield 2 cups with the juices after they are cored and we put that in a cast iron pot.  Then we add 5 tablespoons butter.  Next we add one onion and salt.  That is it.  Now turn your stove top on medium heat and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes or so, stirring every once in a while to break up the chunks and incorporate the flavors.  Avoid the temptation to add anything else.

Our sauce for the spaghetti squash

While our sauce is simmering, the spaghetti squash will be done.  Pull out of the oven and grab a hot pad and a fork.

Start scraping

Work that fork scraping all of the insides of the squash into a serving dish.  Scrape down to the skin of the squash.

Getting the spaghetti out of the squash

If you ever wondered why it is called spaghetti squash, all you gotta do is look at the picture below.  Maybe it should have been named Angel Hair Pasta squash?

Can you see why it is called spaghetti squash?

Now, the dish would have a much darker, richer color, but we didn't follow the recipe to a 'T.'  The recipe calls for you to pull the onion out and discard.  We pureed the onion after cooking and reincorporated and it lightened the color of the sauce that negatively affected the visual appeal, I think.  But not the flavor!  We added a garnish of rosemary and spooned the sauce over the spaghetti squash. 

Grab a fork and sit down with us

We thanked the Good Lord for his provision and sat down to a nice meal.  From the garden plot to the kitchen pot all in less than 100 feet.  That's what I call a LOCAL meal!