Me and spaghetti squash, sitting in a tree.
This is exactly how I like to eat my veggies: tossed with sauteed garlic, toasted pine nuts, fresh herbs, and a handful of grated Gruyère cheese. I mean, honestly. The combination of delicate flavors and textures is Must Have More Now. And at the moment, I can’t think of anything more vegetarianly awesome than these things on a plate sitting in front of me today right around lunchtime. Happening.
But before we launch into spaghetti squash and herbs and cheese and pine nuts and cookbook giveaways (weeee!), Bjork and I have another kitchen update for you involving walls and mismatched wood floors.
Kitchen Update (2 MINs):
The floors. Yeah, about that.
We knew they were going to be a little off, and we actually decided on that intentionally to avoid a complete re-do of the floors throughout our whole house. For the record, we will re-do the entire wood floor in our house SOMEDAY so that the woods will match in terms of color and tone and finish and everything. But the day that the floor guy came last month to talk through the options and give us the estimate also happened to be the day that we reached the tipping point of saying yes to everything. Yes, new appliances. Yes, custom cabinets. Yes, additional lighting. Yes, soft close drawers because it’s the one thing that Bjork actually has an opinion about.
And then the floor guy came, and we started talking about redoing the floors throughout the entire house – like, living room, bedrooms, and dining room because it’s all the same hardwood – and then it became time to start saying no. Or maybe that happened a long time ago? Too late, friends. Too late.
Along with that, I am completely in love with the deep, antiqued, rich color of the hardwood floors the way they are right now –> check out the full house pics ovah heeyah. That was one of the things we loved about the house when we bought it. So why would we go through all the stress of moving every last shred of furniture out of our house and into some kind of storage pod and redoing the entire floors throughout the house if we actually LIKE what we have now? (Answer: to make the floors match. Fine. But still.)
I know you get this, and I know you won’t judge our mismatchy for the first year or two of the new Yum Sweet Kitchen because you are kind friends. I heart your selves.
Okay, okay.
Food blog.
This is a food blog. About, like, food and stuff.
I’m going to get really honest with you about spaghetti squash. The last time I made my own version of spaghetti squash, it was so, so, so bad. Capital B to the AD. I think I tried to get really healthy, which is the cause of 99% of my recipe fails. It’s these moments that teach me valuable lessons, like no you should NOT make frosting out of bananas. Ever. If you have three seconds, you might want to gain some insight on what not to do by studying my previous fails in the tried-to-make-it-healthy-and-just-NO-NO-NO recipe category.
As you can see here, this was more of a yes-yes-yes recipe: yes Gruyère cheese, yes toasted pine nuts, and yes garlicky herbs.
The icky bad overly healthy spaghetti squash time was at least a year ago. At the time I pretended like I was going to eat more than three bites, but then I just hid the leftovers in the back of my fridge and tried to forget everything. It was such a bad time in my life that I haven’t picked up one of those bright yellow, noodly, spaghetti squash-es in over a year.
So when my sweet friend Amanda’s book Smitten with Squash showed up on my doorstep, I flipped through and landed right on this recipe. SPAGHETTI SQUASH REDEEMED! with garlicky olive oil, toasted pine nuts, and Gruyère cheese. Have I mentioned those ingredients already? Yahhhsssss. This is the kind of food that I love eating: simple, vibrant, veggie-friendly, and packed with flavor and unique textures.
This recipe reminds me a lot of the garlic butter spaghetti with herbs that I made in the Philippines, but spoiler alert: this version swaps squash for pasta! How cool do we feel about that?
And plus, you guys, the toasted pine nuts. They could be possibly the cutest, most tasty little thing in all your whole life.
Tomorrow is Saturday and I’m so dreaming of sleeping in (yes, still playing catch up from the trip last week because I’m a sleep-hog), but if I can get up before 1pm *score* I will be heading down to the Farmer’s Market to pick up all the spaghetti squashes in the city of Saint Paul. Look out, world.
Garlic Spaghetti Squash with Herbs
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 2 as a main, 4 as a side 1x
Description
This Garlic Spaghetti Squash with Herbs includes a handful of toasted pine nuts and grated Gruyere cheese. Perfect light dish! Yummo!
Ingredients
- 1 medium spaghetti squash, halved and seeded
- olive oil
- kosher salt
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh basil (sage is also yummy)
- 3/4 cup shredded Gruyère cheese
- 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
- black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Rub squash with a little bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Place the cut side down on a rimmed baking sheet and roast for 25 minutes, until fork tender. Let cool about 10 minutes, then scrape the insides with a fork to pull the strands away from the skin. (At this point I put the strands in a colander, pressed them with a paper towel, and let them rest while I prepped the other ingredients – mine were really really heavy and watery, so this helped get some of the excess moisture out.)
- In a large skillet, heat 2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for 1 1/2 minutes, until fragrant. Stir in spaghetti squash, vinegar, herbs, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook for about 2 minutes to heat through. Remove from heat and stir in Gruyère cheese, then top with pine nuts. Taste and add salt or pepper if desired.
Notes
I felt like I could have eaten this whole plate! Maybe I’m just extra hungry when it comes to squash?! If I were going to make this again, I’d plan to have it serve two people and I’d reduce the amount of oil and cheese to cut out some of the fat per serving. Using 3/4 cup cheese isn’t bad when split between four people – but when I’m eating the whole thing all by myself? Yeah, you get the idea. 🙂
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 45 min
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: garlic spaghetti squash, spaghetti squash recipe, garlic herb spaghetti squash
Giveaway For Smitten with Squash Cookbook
Annnnd here comes the Rafflecopter widget! Just follow the instructions in the little window to enter yourself to win a free copy of the Smitten with Squash Cookbook.
