Friday, November 14, 2008

New Hampshire: Every County Blue (and the squash ain't bad)

I may have mentioned that on Joe and Nicki's last visit, they brought us a lot of presents from the garden. There were eggs, pesto, their company, and last but not least, a great big spaghetti squash.

Spaghetti squash has always baffled me, and without ever really eating it or attempting to cook it, I've always been a little averse. Never tempted to cook it. I think one of the reasons for this is that most things that can be done with it are such homey dishes that they rarely hit restaurant menus or fancy food magazines of the sort I'm trying to cut down on. People usually toss the glassy strands with butter and nutmeg, or top with tomato sauce. Nothing fancy.

However, it is a favorite with many, and for one reason or another never made it to the top of my list to try. That all changed when this recipe started making the blog rounds--see, I told you it was incestuous. I first saw it on the kitchn, and it has migrated around since. For me, it was perfect, as the two things I had wasting away were the two main ingredients, spaghetti squash and fresh ricotta.

I baked the squash (for much longer than recommended, it was much larger), forked it, mixed it up with sage and garlic and ricotta, and had dinner at 11:30 pm. Did you catch the part earlier about the squash baking much, much longer than I had anticipated? Yeah. Lucky there was more ricotta left so I could have my dessert pancakes while I waited.

Oh yes, and it was good. Very good. If the ricotta holds, there might be leftovers, if not, I have the stringy flesh of the whole other half of the squash to play with. Nutmeg and butter sounds very very good. Thanks again, New Hampshire. Every county blue (thanks to the hard work of Matt, Joe, Nicki, and so many others), and squash to boot.

3 comments:

Nicki said...

I sat down to take a look at second dinner, just as I finished a meal that included spaghetti squash. And there's your suggestions on how to make a tastier spaghetti squash! Next time I'll try ricotta and garlic and maybe a bit of thyme. I too have never been tempted to buy or cook this sort of squash- makes me think of odd foods that are made to replicate other foods-vegetarian meat at that terrible restaurant in Manhattan that we went to with Lynn and Gene one Thanksgiving comes to mind.We've got a bunch more of these squash in the cellar, so let us know if you want another one!. Glad to see you're still feeling good about our state! Nicki

Joan said...

Spaghetti squash has always been one of my favorites - precisely because of it's jokey nature - it's spaghetti but it's not really! Always good with all kinds of spices.

dad

Katya said...

"jokey nature"????? That's spectacular.