The Pasta Plant

I coworker fried for years would tell me about the "zoodles" he and his wife would make.  It sounded interesting.  Instead of using pasta in dishes like spaghetti, they opted for vegetable noodles.  They bought a vegetable spiralizer and would run zucchini through it to make their noodles.  He said it was much more healthy for you.  I can see that, but I love pasta (and rice, and potatoes, and bread).

I briefly looked on the Internet for spiralizers and found them ranging from $9 to $55.  Thing is, you don't need another kitchen appliance if you grow Spaghetti Squash.  This is a strange squash, but is pretty easy to grow.  I planted ours late, but didn't have room in the main garden until this fall.  We have them planted in the side yard bed.  They have done quite well and there are a number of spaghetti squash on the vine.

The problem is that we've had several nights that dipped to about 30 degrees and several others where the temps hovered right at freezing.  Those temperatures spell doom to the squash, so I figured we should begin harvesting a few and eating them before the freeze kills them.

You can tell when they are ripe by pushing your fingernail into the outer rind.  When it is hard and doesn't leave a mark, it is ready to pull.

We've grown bigger ones, but this one is okay.  I need to keep amending the soil in this bed and add compost and chicken litter to boost fertility.  We'll take this one inside and cook it.  To cook it, we cut them in half, take the seeds out, turn the squash upside down on a stone baking tray with water in the bottom and put it in the oven.

When done you pull out of the oven and use a fork to 'fluff' the spaghetti squash up.  The "noodles" are roughly comparable to angel hair pasta.  You can add butter to it and eat it as is.  We've done that.

But we also like to make up some spaghetti meat sauce and serve it over a bed of Spaghetti Squash.

We thoroughly enjoyed eating it and have several more waiting in the wings.  If a freeze is imminent, I'll cover the plant with a tarp as they still need to grow a little bit.