Spaghetti Squash Gratin

I love pasta, however, Lois and I have been trying to keep to a low carb diet. Lois is lower than I am. We especially try to limit carbs for dinners.

At Sigona's vegie stand in Redwood City I saw a spaghetti squash and thought I could make something tasty for dinner. It's low carb and is a spaghetti like substance. Searching for recipes I found the ones that treated it like pasta to be either boring or too saucy (Spaghetti Squash Alfredo or Spaghetti Squash Marinara - no thanks).

The idea was to make something that preserved the texture of the squash and used some of the herbs from our garden. We have lemon basil that is needing to be used up before the first frost hits and a sage plant that is just begging me to do a pork roast (but that's another post).

I decided to do a gratin of spaghetti squash.

Preheat oven to 375.

Cut spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds (this was a very strange spaghetti squash, the seeds had actually sprouted, I had never seen that before). Place the squash cut side down in a pan and add about a half inch of water. Place in oven and cooks for 30-45 minutes until a knife will easily penetrate.

Sauce:

1/2 red onion, fine dice
2-3 cloves garlic sliced thin
5-6 large sage leaves rough chopped
1/4 cup red pepper thin slices
1/2 cup fresh tomato rough chop
1/2 cup white wine
salt
a shake or two of peperoncini to taste
2 tbsp olive oil

On high heat get the oil hot, add the garlic and sage for about 30 seconds, then add the onions, peppers, and salt and cook until the onions are soft, add the tomato, wine and peperoncini. Cook until the tomatoes are incorporated and the liquid has reduced down to a thick sauce.

The idea here is to add a bit of tomato but not overpower the final dish with a heavy sauce.

When the spaghetti squash is soft, remove from the oven and using a fork scoop out the squash. The squash will come out in stringy bits, thus the name.

4 Cups cooked spaghetti squash
2 tbsp rough chopped sage
1/4 cup chopped lemon basil (regular basil is fine, but we had the lemon stuff)
3/4 cup grated parmesan reggiano
1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
salt and pepper

Put the cooked squash in a large saute pan and mix in the sauce, sage, basil, a little salt and a good grind of pepper. Heat and reduce out any liquid, this is a pretty dry mixture. Turn the heat off and mix in 1/2 cup of the parmesan cheese. Put this into a greased 2 quart gratin pan. Cover with a mixture of the panko and remaining cheese.

About 30-40 minutes in the 375 oven until the top is brown.

Serve with a salad and you have dinner. I was really happy with the way this came out. There was a bit of heat from the peperoncini, and a great taste of sage with a little tomato to add some acidity. Not to much cheese so it was a lite dish with a lot of flavor.

Monday, I've got plans for the leftovers!