Spaghetti Squash

Some of my friends grow an enviable garden each year. This year I have the opportunity to sample homegrown spaghetti squash, only I've never had it before. I was advised several ways of essentially making spaghetti and substituting the squash for noodles. I wasn't certain if that was exactly what I wanted to do since I had eggplant parmesan last week and two weeks of spaghetti sauce wasn't exactly sounding exciting. So I looked up spaghetti squash recipes on the Weight Watchers website to see what forms of preparation they might suggest. Most of the recipes were for some sort of marinara or bolognese sauce, but there was one that reminded me of a meal my mom used to make, spaghetti pizza.

Here is the variation of spaghetti pie (pizza) that I made this evening. I took the WW recipe and made some slight changes to make it more me but it didn't change the total points much, 4 points per serving (6 slices).

1 med raw spaghetti squash

1/2 lb lean ground turkey (1/2 container of Jennie-O ground turkey)

2 tsp olive oil

1 yellow onion, small/medium

1/2 tsp minced jarred garlic

28 oz canned diced tomatoes, undrained

1 tsp italian seasoning

6 oz part skim ricotta

1/4 cup fat-free cottage cheese

1 egg

1 spray cooking spray, nonstick

1/2 cup part skim mozzarella cheese

2 tsp grated parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 350; halve and clean out squash. Place squash, cut sides down, in large baking dish and prick skin with knife. Bake until tender about 30-40 minutes (I did it for 35 min.)

2. Cook turkey in oil; add onion, garlic, and italian seasoning until turkey cooked through and onion tender. Stir in tomatoes, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until desired consistency.

3. Place ricotta, cottage cheese, and egg in food processor, puree until smooth.

4. Coat glass baking dish with cooking spray. Remove squash from oven and increase oven temperature to 375.

5. Using fork carefully rake string squash pulp from shell separating into strands that look like spaghetti. Arrange squash in bottom and up sides of pan to form a crust.

6. Spread ricotta mixture over squash. Spoon tomato-turkey mixture over cheese, sprinkle with parmesan and mozzarella. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and let stand about 5 minutes before slicing.

Chocolate Cake

So last night I was sitting around craving sweets. I thought about trying out the "Deep Dark Chocolate Cake" from Cook Yourself Thin but didn't have the almonds or beets on hand to make that particular recipe so I decided to scour my cookbooks to see what I could make without going grocery shopping.

I found a Weight Watchers recipe for "Chocolate Layer Cake" that called for raspberry jam/jelly to act as the frosting. Only I don't have round pans on-hand to make a layer cake so I decided I'd tweek the recipe a slight bit and just make a regular sheet cake without the fruit which left the cake measuring at 2 points per square.

1 cup + 2 tbsp ap flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp instant-coffee granules

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 egg

2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 tbsp dry buttermilk

1 cup water

1/3 tbsp powdered sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350; spray baking pan with nonstick spray.

2. In sm bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, powder, coffee granules, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a measuring cup mix the dry buttermilk powder with water.

4. In a med bowl, with an electric mixer on high speed, cream the granulated sugar and butter; add the egg and vanilla, beating until smooth. Gradually beat in the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk, until batter is smooth. Pour into baking pan. Bake 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (15 minutes was enough in my oven in Denver).

5. Cool completely. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of the cake using a fine mesh strainer. Cut cake into 12 squares.

My cake looked and tasted really nice until I covered it before going to bed. When I woke up the powdered sugar had completely absorbed into the cake so it looks like an undecorated cake. However, it still tasted like a nice light cake. Next time, I'd probably add about a tablespoon of the instant coffee to deepen flavor.