Growing Angel Hair Pasta in the Garden

It's all the rage today to eliminate the carbs in your diet.  Trouble is, I LIKE carbs.  Whether they be in the form of rice, potatoes, or pasta, I'm digging them and not trying to reduce them.  As far as pasta, I have many favorites: linguine, bowtie pasta, spaghetti for starters.  My all time favorite, however, is Angel Hair Pasta.  I don't know why, but it's just better to me.  I like it just plain with butter and garlic or with Shrimp Scampi.  We eat it a lot with homemade pesto.  I never get tired of it.

What if I told you that you could GROW angel hair pasta in your garden?  You can.  Below, you can see it growing.  There's a lot going on in this photo.  Some of the vines are for birdhouse gourds.  Some are butternut squash, but some are spaghetti squash.  Let's hunt through the jungle of vines to see if we can discover a spaghetti squash in its natural habitat.

Yes, there's one right there, and it is ripe for picking!  This one is about 8 inches long and about 4 or 5 inches in diameter.  It's a nice size - not too big, but not too small.  Tricia and I are empty-nesters, so this will be the perfect size for the two of us.  

Spaghetti squash are easy to prepare.  Simply cut them in half and scoop out all of the seeds out of the middle.  We pre heat the oven and brush with plenty of butter.  Then it's placed face down in a baking dish and put in the oven.

When it's done, we remove it from the oven and 'fluff' it with a fork.  Simply take a fork and scrape the sides and all around.  The 'spaghetti,' which closely resembles angel hair pasta comes off of the outer rind of the squash.  Unlike other squash like butternut or Tahitian melon which are creamy, the spaghetti squash resembles angel hair pasta.

We remove it from the squash with a fork and put it on a plate.  Can you see what I mean about its resemblance to angel hair pasta?

Most times we put a homemade tomato sauce on top or maybe a pesto sauce.  Today, we'll just eat it with real butter, garlic, and salt.  Last year we didn't have a good spaghetti squash crop at all.  This year we were able to have a decent harvest and I'm planning to plant a fall crop of them, too, in a few weeks. You can grow your own "pasta" after all!