CombODDnation: Ginger Spaghetti Squash

Here's a really simple one, only a slight twist on the usual.  You'll need a spaghetti squash, a small ginger root, brown sugar, and water.  Olive oil too if you're doing the seeds up (as shown at end of post).

Start by coring the seeds out of both halves of a spaghetti squash.  

Keep those seeds, we'll talk about those a little further down this post.

Put these cavity side up in a pan (this is a clear pirex pan so you can't see it very well).

Slice the ginger root and place the slices in this cavity left from the seeds.

Put 1/4 cup brown sugar in each seed cavity.

Putt approximately 1/4 cup water over all this.  The cavity should be filled about half an inch from the top.

Put in Oven at 400 degrees.
One hour and thirty minutes for this medium sized hybrid squash.  Bigger squashes may need longer.

Here's to realizing that not everybody knows how to scrape this squash into spaghetti form, eh?
I use a my silicon hot mits to hold the squash while it's still pretty warm, and use a long tines dinner fork to scrape at the squash flesh.  Start from the sides, like so.

 

Once it's all loosened up, you can actually just put the squash shell in a bowl and eat the spaghetti right out of that, or you can lift the strands into a bowl for serving.  You will be lifting out portions then going back to scraping again.  Doesn't hurt to cut the strands a bit, these will be long spaghetti strands.

Feeds two.  Goes well with the juices poured over it, the now candied gingers can be diced and put on top.  Tomato sauce on top is also fantastic.

Sorry, that's totally my yellow tomato and hot pepper tomato sauce I canned from garden surplus last year.  Just add lemon juice and you can make that too by following any standard canning recipe for tomato sauce, but ya gotta grow the tomatoes and peppers first!

Now!  SEEDS!  Actually, I do these as an appetizer when I put the squash in the oven.

So what's the easiest thing to do with the bits inside a squash or pumpkin?  I do my seeds up like so...

Put about 2 Tbs oil in a skillet on low heat.
Scoup out the squash and put everything that comes out of that center portion straight into the oiled skillet.  Stringy stuff and all.

In 10 minutes, flip this stuff over.  Go for another 5 minutes on this side.

Let cool and start munching.

You know, for as much as I love squash (OMG love love) the terms I use in describing it aren't as appetizing as they could be.  So far I've used "cavity" and "flesh" so I may as well let you know that the stringy bits that come out with the seeds from pumpkins and squash, yes, I'm silly, I call those entrails.  Oh deary me.