Italian Days and giveaways...

CR is a huge spaghetti fan.  Noodles, sauce and ground beef.  It is pretty easy to make him happy.  Sadly, now that we are keeping grains out of our lives it makes spaghetti a little more challenging.  Enter spaghetti squash.

If you haven't seen or heard of spaghetti squash.  It looks like a big melon.  Once you slice it and bake it, the inside is shredded and looks like spaghetti noodles.  

    
They are soooo easy to prepare too!  Heat in the microwave for 1 minute then slice it in half lengthwise.  

Scoop out the membranes and the seeds then place cut side down in a microwaveable dish with 1/2 cup of water.  I had to cook one half at a time since my microwave wasn't quite large enough for both halves.  Cook on high for 12 minutes.

Once it is done, you shred the insides with a fork

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See?  It looks like spaghetti! The flavor is a little bit on the sweet side.  You could just add salt, pepper and butter and call it a day.  Maybe sprinkling a little pepper jack cheese on top would be good too.   

I had spaghetti with meat sauce on the brain so I made up a tomato sauce.  While the squash was cooking, I sauteed a medium onion and a clove of minced garlic in some olive oil.  

I added a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, oregano, red pepper flakes and salt to taste. If you like your sauce chunky you could call it done there but CR is not an onion fan so I put mine in a blender for a few seconds to smooth it out.   

I added some ground beef to the finished sauce.  The odds of CR eating it greatly improve when there is meat involved.   I topped the "spaghetti" with the meat sauce and a sprinkle of parmesan & romano cheeses before blasting it in the micro for a quick second to melt.  

Let's be real, these aren't actual noodles so you aren't going to fool anyone into thinking they are something they are not BUT if that someone has committed to joining you on your No Sugar / No Grains journey it might make a pretty awesome substitute!  CR is pretty picky about veggies and he thought the squash was pretty good which is a HUGE stamp of approval.  

 ....   and on to the GIVEAWAY!

If you shop at Publix very often you might be familiar with their Italian Days specials.  You know they have deals on pasta, sauces and the like.  What you might now know is that I have a $25 Publix card to give away!  You can use it to buy your own spaghetti squash or even some traditional pasta.  I won't judge...trust me.    

The Italian Days event runs from February 11th through March 1st at Publix.  During the even shoppers will be able to enter for a chance to be 1 of the 500 shoppers that will win a $100 Publix® gift card! To enter for a chance to win and to download great coupon savings and delicious recipes, look in-store or visit www.clickcallmail.com.

If you would like to win a $25 Publix Gift Card to make your Italian inspired creation, just leave me a comment with the name of your favorite Italian dish.  Winner will be chosen at random on February 20th.  (make sure you provide your email so I can contact you).



General Mills and Publix provided me with the information and gift card for this giveaway but all tasty recipes were my own!  :)