Tuesday, October 26, 2010

CSA 22: Monster Guts (aka spaghetti squash with pesto)

Monster guts. 'Tis the season after all. I first made this meal a month or so ago and immediately thought "monster guts". Its a funky looking blob of green stringy mush. Honestly it looks like something straight out of a cartoon. But its super tasty and awesomely healthful: spaghetti squash with collard greens and cheese pesto.

For the squash - I find it too hard to cut a large raw squash, but they do cook faster in half, so I cook it about 10-15 minutes whole then cut it. Its still actually kind of hard to cut it but it really speeds the cook time. I pull the seeds  and gook out when I cut it but you could probably bake it with them in it.

As for the green cheese sauce, anything will do fine. I just used what I had on hand: a cheddar cheese stick, a mini Bonbel Light wheel and some fresh Parmesan cheese. And I used collard greens, carrot greens and parsley because its what I had, but spinach, chard, beet greens and any kind of herb would tasty. Of course the sauce would be better with a nut blended in - pine nut, almond, any nut really, and last time I made it I did add almond, but it worked without the nut as well.

Monster Guts
1/2 spaghetti squash
3 collard green leaves
1 clove garlic
handful of carrot greens
handful of parsley
4 oz mixed cheese
olive oil
pepper & Adobo

Bake the squash for about 45-60 minutes until its squishy.

Roughly chop the collards and remove the stems. Boil them for about 10 minutes. Add the carrot greens the last 4 minutes or so. Drain.

Put the greens, the parsley, the garlic and the cheese into a food processor. Start it going and drizzle in some oil. Stop occasionally to scrape down the sides and to season with pepper and Adobo. 

Scrape the spaghetti squash with a fork to release the threads.

Mix the spaghetti with the sauce, revel in its appearance for a moment, and enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. don't forget your jar of Almond butter--its nothing but ground up almonds--not even salt is added. you can add almond butter instead of fresh nuts.

    (trader joes has a great selection of nuts--reasonable prices, too)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have always loved spaghetti squash, but had never tried it as a spaghetti substitute till last week, when I had it with some red sauce, and cheese, I have another spaghetti squash in my kitchen right now, I may give this a whirl!!great idea!!

    ReplyDelete