Ever since I got married, one thing that I really enjoy doing is cooking. I love putting a meal together for my husband and I. Before him, I was not much of a cook. Mac and Cheese were about the most I ever cooked. Now that I have someone to cook for I love it! Lately, I have been slacking on cooking. I have been working such long hours. I’ve been going through drive-thrus and ordering pizzas on my way home from work. My body can’t take it anymore! One of my New Year resolutions is to start making time for things, and cooking is one of those things I would like to make time for.
I’ve been on the hunt for some new recipes to try in 2014. Pinterest is where I get most of my recipes. I post anything that looks good and looks doable. (you’re not going to see me baking cutesy cakes made to look like a candy bar or making gourmet complicated recipes) I honestly don’t know what I did before there was Pinterest. I don’t always have a great attention span for the following recipes. Plus I always forget at least one ingredient at the grocery store. This is when I improvise. It always turns out yummy.
I pinned a great spaghetti squash recipe recently. I love pasta dishes! Not only do I love pasta, but pasta is cheap, so I make a ton of pasta dishes. I know that pasta has a lot of calories in it. It can really add up when you’re trying to watch your calorie intake. This is why I love spaghetti squash. It’s a great substitute for pasta. It has a very mild taste to it.
So the recipe I tried was a Spaghetti Squash Ricotta Cheese Casserole. The original recipe is from this great blog Fitness & Feta. I found some really great healthy recipes on this blog that I can’t wait to try! I made my casserole a little different than hers, due to lack of planning, but it still turned out really yummy!
I got all my ingredients from Kroger. When I first started grocery shopping in the area I live now, I tried out all the grocery store to find out where I could get the best deals. For me it was Kroger. They offer the best weekly deals. I use my Kroger app to know what’s on sale and plan my meals around that. I like their Kroger brand items as well. I can usually find just about everything I need there.
So here is what I used…
Ingredients:
Large Spaghetti Squash- $.99 per lb.
1/2 cup Ricotta cheese- $2
1/4 cup shredded cheese (the recipe said any kind of cheese you want, I used Italian blend cheese)-$2
1 egg (I used 1/4 cup of egg beaters. They are less fat and were on sale.)- $1.25
1 tsp mince garlic
1 Tomato (The original recipe calls for sun dried tomatoes, but I didn’t realize that until after I got home from the store. The regular tomato was good too, but I’m sure the sun dried tomatoes would taste great too.)
2 Tbs of marinara sauce.
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 400.
- Cut Squash in half, scoop seeds out and place on cookie sheet.
- Drip olive oil and salt and pepper over squash
- Bake for 45 minutes- 1hour
- After squash is cooked, let cool
- Use fork to remove the insides and make it into a spaghetti form.
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Add Spaghetti squash, ricotta cheese, egg beaters, Italian cheese and tomato in bowl and mix.
- Spray 8×8 baking dish with oil of your choice.
- Place all ingredient to baking dish, then cover and bake for 20 minutes, uncover and finish cooking for another 20 minute.
- Let cool
- Add warm Marinara to plate, top with casserole and Parmesan cheese and enjoy!
This recipe super easy, cheap to make, healthy and delicious! It definitely makes me want to get back into cooking!
This sounds great..I will have to try this soon!