Spaghetti Squash Recipe: Try it Tuesday!

It's fall and that means it is squash season!  I just recently have made the discovery of how much I LOVE spaghetti squash and there is so much you can do with it!  One of my personal favorites is using it in Spaghetti rather than regular noodles.  For tonight I wanted to have spaghetti squash but wanted to try something new. I tried this recipe and it was great!  It is so easy and although it took a long time to cook (about an hour and fifteen minutes total) it did not take much work at all!  I only spent about 5 minutes prepping the squash to cook and then roughly 5 more putting it all together in the dish.

Now for the facts.  This recipe does not take much for ingredients at all!  All I had to buy to make this meal was the squash, tomatoes, fresh basil, and cheese.  My grocery bill totaled $9.82. Generally, each of the spices are $1.00 each so if I had to purchase those it would have been an additional $4.00. I got a squash that was about 2 1/2 Pounds and so I made about 4 servings for this meal. This means the meal was $3.45 per person!

Ingredients:
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About 3 Cups Cooked Spaghetti Squash 
2 Large Garden Tomatoes Sliced
Salt
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Dried Basil
Dried Parsley
5 Ounces Shredded Mexican Cheese Blend
Fresh Basil for Garnish


Directions:
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Cooking Spaghetti Squash:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees 
2. Cut squash in half.  If you are having difficulties cutting the squash, try putting it in the microwave for 2 minutes.  If this does not help try and additional 1 minute until you are able to cut it.
3. Remove all the "guts" and seeds from the center of the squash
4. Place in 9x13 baking pan and fill will roughly 1 inch of water
5. Bake for 30 minutes.  If you are not able to shred the squash with a fork easily, place back in oven for additional 15 minutes.




Cooking Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2.  Spray a 9x11 casserole dish with non-stick spray
3. Spread about 1 cup of spaghetti squash in the bottom of the dish
4. Top with layer of sliced tomatoes and sprinkle with salt and spices
5. Top with 1 1/2 ounces of cheese
6. Add another layer of squash, then tomatoes, spices and cheese
7. Top final layer of squash
8. Top with last 2 ounces of cheese and sprinkle spices one last time
9. Bake for 20 minutes uncovered
10. Top with fresh cut basil and serve!




My Thoughts:
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I really loved this recipe.  The only changes that I would make would be to add more tomatoes.  I would also dice them instead of placing them as slices throughout the layers.  Other than that I really recommend this dish to everyone!