Hello.
Welcome to my worst nightmare.
I’m a mom of 3 kids who all have different tastes and intolerances …and a husband who decided last summer that an all-plant based diet was his chosen path.
We were once a normal family… but then the CSA’s started showing up, Whole 30 lasted longer than 30 and our Ben & Jerry’s now shares a shelf with the meatless meatballs. Luckily, we all love veggies and so we have that going for us! We do try to eat dinner together… ‘us’ with our salmon, rice and mixed veggies and ‘him’ with some concoction I can’t even explain (but looks beautiful!). Did I mention that he was our primary cook for most of our marriage. Yep. Poor kids.
I am not a vegan. I repeat…NOT A VEGAN. I am a Vegan’s Wifey… I feel like adding the ‘y’ makes me sound cutesy and happy (see what the power of that little ‘y’ can do to a word…I’m going with it!). I’ll tell you that the first 6 months of my new status was not pretty…it was actually incredibly (yay for the ‘y’) awful (adding a ‘y’ here doesn’t work).
So if you, too, have a partner who abandoned you on the side of the cattle path and jumped the fence to greener Spinach pastures..you are not alone!
Here’s a recipe that makes us all happy, and has been around a while..but definitely one to keep in your recipe stack! And the best part…it didn’t leave behind a mess of dishes for cleanup! That’s what I’m talking about! Score!
1 jar tomato sauce (we love Newman’s Own Tomato Basil… #vegan)
1 medium pepper, diced into small pieces
1 medium onion, diced (small again)
garlic, minced approx 1 Tbspn
Olive Oil (approx 3 tbspns)
salt and pepper (to taste)
mushrooms, sliced (optional)
1 Spaghetti Squash, halved and scooped out (not the easiest to cut.. for a quick tutorial on cutting and scooping the squash out, check out this video from Eating Well. It also includes a quick microwave instruction which would work when short on time!)
- Preheat oven to 350. After squash is scooped out, rub the inside with olive oil (less than a tablespoon should do!) and season with salt and pepper. Place on an oven safe dish, face down. (I used parchment paper on a cookie sheet.) Bake for approx 45-50 minutes, uncovered.
- While the squash is doing it’s thing… saute onions and bell pepper in 2 Tbspns Olive Oil. Once the onions are translucent, add the garlic and mushrooms allowing to cook for about 1 minute (careful not to burn your garlic), then add the jar of tomato sauce. Allow to simmer while the squash cooks.
- When squash is ready, remove from the oven and flip over. Using a fork, scrape the inside of the squash to pull the ‘spaghetti noodles’ free. Top with the spaghetti sauce!
suggestions: hide some broccoli in your sauce.. that’ about the only way I can get my son to eat broccoli!
*recipe made 4 servings (we paired with a baked potato)
*the non-vegans added parm cheese to top off our spaghetti squash, and butter for our potatoes..didn’t want you to think we were that committed!
Hill Life Inspired 