Squash Day

After a weekend with a fussy baby Mars, my other three children following me around like baby ducklings, and my husband away at another retreat (fall is retreat season – send help!) Monday snuck up on me like a toddler in the middle of the night.

I stumbled around the house Monday morning looking for my coffee cup, picking up markers separated from their caps and whatever else my children didn’t take care of Sunday before I called bedtime.

I walked into the kitchen to start my coffee, tidied up enough to make myself feel better and stared blankly across the kitchen as I waited.

And it started:

“Can we have a snack?”

“I’ve only had *(3 things)* today, can I have a *(ridiculous unnecessary item)* PLEASE?”

“I’M SO HUNGRY!”

and, of course, the unrelated but ever-famous:

“Can I play on my tablet?”

My eyes were barely open and I was trying to function on who knows how many hours of sleep. I looked around for ideas, tossed them a few trusty Costco-bought “energy bars” and it bought me about 48 seconds.

I noticed the massive pile of squash that’s been hogging up my kitchen island for over a week. A guy on my husband’s bowling league gifted us way more squash than I knew what to do with. My wheels started turning.

I decided is was Squash Day.

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We eat pretty healthy meals all week, so I really don’t feel bad when we take a day to do something a little off-the-wall. [Plus we had green smoothies and a couple other snacks – it wasn’t all squash.]

I cut a few in half [spaghetti and butternut] and started gutting. Then I created “trenches” in the tops of the butternut squash for my little mixture to spread out an soak in.

I googled if it was safe for dogs to eat squash. No wasting food here. I separated out the seeds and cooked the rest – per the advice of doghealthcoach.com [the first result to show up] My dogs enjoyed their treat.

You need to know:

I’m terrible at following recipes. I’m equally terrible at writing them. It’s a creative brain thing – I don’t like feeling restricted. Cooking allows me freedom to switch things up, that’s why I don’t bake – too strict. So please forgive my attempt here:

• Spaghetti squash
• 16 oz. ground Italian sausage
• 1 tsp oil
• Salt & garlic powder to taste
• 10 oz. tomato sauce
• Butternut squash
• 1.5-2 TBS real maple syrup
• 1-2 TBS butter or coconut oil
• Light sprinkle of cinnamon
• Dandies marshmallows (optional)

I set my oven to 350, which is  just the default when I turn it on. I got some ground Italian sausage from the fridge, split it in half, and stuffed it into the spaghetti squash bowls I had just carved. I added a little avocado oil to the surface of the squash, and some salt and garlic powder over top –  those were ready to go.

I made half of my butternut squash dessert dairy free by just using coconut oil. The other half got a nice chunk of Kerrygold butter. I added about 1.5 TBS (maybe a little more) of pure maple syrup. Depending on how deep of crater you’ve got in your squash, feel free to adjust how much butter/syrup you want. I sprinkled some cinnamon over the entire thing.

I ended up putting 4 halves in at the same time (one spaghetti, one butternut) so it took about 45 minutes to cook through to my satisfaction.

I took the butternut squash out first and started scooping out the deliciousness from the skin. I still had a little pool of butter/oil and syrup going on, so I made sure to mix that up as well. I ended up adding some Dandies marshmallows on top and putting it back in the oven for about 5 more minutes.

I got my spaghetti squash out, chopped up the sausage and took a fork to the squash. That’s kind of my favorite part. If you cook it right, it makes perfect little noodle like pieces without much effort. Once I hallowed out both halves, I added some tomato sauce, Himalayan pink salt, and garlic. I didn’t have any fresh herbs on hand, but some parsley would have been great. If you can do cheese you could even throw some Parmesan on top.

MY. KIDS. LOVED. IT.

We ate it all day, finishing the last of the dessert at dinner time.

The boys take turns repeatedly do this goofy thing Dash picked up at school if they really like something: 

“Mom I don’t like this” *big, dramatic, giggly pause* “I LOVE IT!”

Even Sunshine does it now and it’s adorable.

So, there you have it. Squash day was a success.

What are your go-to squash recipes?

Marvel [who’s currently in the hospital again due to his sickle-cell struggles] commented on my picture on Facebook reminding me how much he hates squash.

How about you? Love it or hate it?