The other day, I made a bunch of angel hair squash while I had my spiral slicer out. It dawned on me today that I could use this in the place of spaghetti squash in recipes. I love these, but spaghetti squash can be hard to find in the summer--it is messy with all those seeds and it can be a bit pricey! These strands are just as good and so much easier. They don't even need to be pre-cooked. Funny thing is, spaghetti squash is used as a substitute for carbs, and here I am using a substitute for that squash. The world can be a strange place. The original recipe I based this on calls for potato hash browns. So the spiral cut squash is a substitute for lots of things I guess.
My youngest son is exploring the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for his IBS issues, so you may see some changes in my cooking. I won't go into the specifics of that eating plan, but I am doing as much as I can to merge the two ways of eating into one menu. He can consume no starches at all, so much of what we will be eating is the same. He can have honey and all fruits, so that is a bit different. Tonight's recipe is on his plan, but with ingredients that are friendly to all low carbers. My original recipe used sour cream and cream cheese, but he can't have dairy unless it is cultured. So I just substituted some of his yogurt that I had drip thickened into a Greek style, and it tastes great. Now if I can just get him to like squash as much as I do!
I baked these in individual casseroles so he and I could just have servings for one. I found those at Marshalls a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to use them, but I have been avoiding my oven if at all possible in this heat. Today, I used the toaster oven instead since these are small.
Squashy Casserole
3 cups spiral cut yellow squash or zucchini
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 egg
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Beat egg and yogurt together. Stir into squash, making sure all strands are coated. Add cheese, salt and pepper. Turn into buttered baking dish and sprinkle a bit of cheese on top. Bake at 325 for about 30-40 minutes.
If you really like cheese, just add even more!
What a great idea for using the spiral sliced squash!! Yum!
ReplyDeleteGinny, be sure to keep me posted if you find any more good uses too. I made a spaghetti salad. It was good, but not great. My mom just dehydrated some ribbons of carrot and squash. They are really god for salad crunchies, but a bit of work for something that is gone so quickly.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'll let you know what I come up with. I've done butternut squash in it also and added that to a salad with the zucchini and yellow squash that I brought to a pot luck. That turned out great. People asked for the recipe and were surprised when I told them what it was. I really used some muscle to make all that though--enough for our church! Whew! Need to come up with an electric one! :p
ReplyDeleteI made a Squashy Casserole today, using spiral sliced zucchini... Yummy!
ReplyDeleteI didn't have any yogurt so subbed with sour cream. And added some green onion and garlic spice... Mmmm. Thanks for a very versatile recipe. :-)
Oh, and I didn't want to fire up the oven in this heat, so baked it in my Flavorwave oven, came out perfect!
Loretta
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