Wednesday night pig out

I have been hungry lately. I mean HUNGRY. Hard to stop eating - pacing around like a tiger in a cage hungry. It sucks. I think it's holiday hangover - but regardless of the reason its my current reality. So in an effort to slap the hungry girl down a bit, I have been trying to branch out in my veggie eating. I have seen a lot on spaghetti squash lately - so I picked one up this weekend.

I had very little clue about how to eat this thing or cook it for that matter. Yay for Google! I found this wonderful tutorial on Food.com and decided to try the boil in a pot method. (Mostly because I didn't have a nice poking device for ... well.... poking it with. I know I have a metal skewer somewhere....)



So I filled a pot with water. The pot had to be big enough to cover the squash. Being inexperienced in this I had concerns. Is it supposed to float? How will it cook evenly? Turns out the squash sort of rolled in the boiling water - which was really neat! The downside to boiling a squash is you kind of have to hang out in the kitchen while it cooks. They said up to a half hour (I gave it 45 minutes) to get your squash cooked, so I grabbed a magazine and a glass of wine!

I have to say I didn't have high hopes for the February Knit 'n Style based on the cover sweater. (Didn't I wear this in 1993?) But I actually found quite a few things of interest in this magazine. If you click here you can see the Gallery of the items featured in the magazine. I really love the knit Bulky Cabled Vest by Melissa Leapman. I have been aching to knit myself a vest for about a year now - and this one is so interesting. A bit of peek-a-boo with the cables so your shirt under the vest shows. Really like this! (Wonder how it would look on my size rather than a model though?)

I also really liked the shaping of the Kaleidoscope sweater. Not thrilled with the pattern of the yarn - but the shaping of the sweater itself is nice. I think this would be nice in a solid or ombre yarn. Maybe even kettle dyed.

The Lattice Pullover with Peplum was neat too. Reminds me of the Jane Austin Knits magazine that was all the rage in the last few months.

I also really liked the Nordic Ice sweater. Pretty basic Nordic design - but I am really geeking out on Nordic Sweaters right now. I kind of want to knit a giant Lopi Sweater.

So I enjoyed my flip through the magazine and the wine was pretty nice too. :) Before I knew it my squash was done. (I stuck a fork in it and it went in easy - that's how you know it's cooked.) So I dumped it out in the sink and let it cool for a minute while I washed the pan. Then I cut it in half.

It was still quite hot at this point. You can see the seeds in there a little bit. I had to get those out - so I grabbed a spoon and started scooping away the seeds and attached squash. (This was kind of like scooping seeds out of a pumpkin - but a lot warmer. Boiling a squash for 45 minutes REALLY makes it warm. Just saying.)

Once the seeds were out I grabbed a fork and started pulling the squash out. Wow. You get a LOT Of squash! The outer skin sort of peels off and a half squash filled this plate up and then some. I ended up taking one cup of Wee Willy's Pasta Sauce and just a shake of reduced fat Parmesan cheese on top. It was really good and SO filling! I could have halved the amount I ate easily. As it was, I pigged out and got really full and did it guilt free. A very healthy dinner and I am quite pleased.

AND I have a nice bunch of leftovers for lunch tomorrow too! Yay!