Bob and I are Food Network junkies, along with the travel channel, especially “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain. Our favorite is Bobby Flay, the grill meister. One of his grill recipes was acorn squash cut into rings, grilled with maple syrup, brown sugar or butter, or combination of, delicious for even the average squash hater. We also watch Emeril, a fellow Portuguese, in the morning when we are waking up with our coffee, and I recently saw him cook a spaghetti squash. We were planning a trip to Watsonville to visit friends, and their daughter Ashley is a vegetarian, so I thought this would be a good recipe to try. I googled spaghetti squash, and found a recipe that Emeril had cooked on the Planet Green/Discovery channel. I had bought some canned Italian Cherry Tomatoes at the Grocery Outlet that I really wanted to try (if they were good I could stock up before they ran out), so I used those in the marinara sauce. I baked two squash in separate pans – following the recipe I put water in the first pan, but forgot the water in the second, and they both turned out great. I had brought down a mix of veggies from my kitchen and added a few things to the marinara, a green bell pepper, a handful of fresh basil, didn’t have tomato puree so I used a small can of tomato sauce, and forgot to add the Italian Seasoning (we were hungry and I always rush through recipes without reading them through!). It turned out delicious, and very healthy to boot. Click here for a link to the recipe and get over the aversion to squash! ~nancy mueller~

Nancy’s version of Emeril’s spaghetti squash with marinara sauce