Spaghetti Squash Fail.

   I was seduced last week by several WW members that were singing the praises of the spaghetti squash.  They said it was an awesome substitute for pasta, would be a great way to incorporate vegetables, and just in general pretty much rocked.  A vegetable as an alternative for pasta?  Seriously?  I was skeptical, but decided to drink the Kool-Aid and give it a whirl.  What was the worst that could happen?

   So I went to the store, armed with a Google image of what this stupid thing was supposed to look like.  Fortunately for me, the Googling was not necessary because there was a sticker on the thing telling me exactly which one was the infamous and magical spaghetti squash.  I placed it in my cart, already feeling superior to those around me because I was making a decidedly healthy choice over their Doritos and TGI Friday's boxed, frozen appetizers.  Huzzah.

   I finished my shopping and brought my new prized possession home.  Behold:

   THE MIGHTY SPAGHETTI SQUASH.  Complete with idiot-proof label and cooking instructions.  I was ready to conquer this beast.  Step #1: it had to die:

   ... and have it's guts scraped out...

   GUTTTTTS....

 
   Thus far, this was turning out to be exceedingly similar to carving a pumpkin, one of my favorite fall activities.  Also, it occurs to me as I am writing this that the poor squash really was subjected to a medieval-style execution.  Clearly it was a treasonous squash to incur such a punishment. In any event, I was beginning to feel like a caveman that had just discovered fire.  This.  Was.  AWESOME.

   Next, I put  both halves in the microwave for 10 minutes, as suggested by the directions.  When the microwave was done, I brought out my glorious conquest and dove in to begin the fun part; scraping the insides with a fork to make the lovely noodle shaped pieces like I'd seen on the YouTube video showing how to prepare a spaghetti squash.  It was at this moment that my confidence began to waver... I wasn't getting the nice noodly shapes I was expecting, despite my correct fork-scraping technique.  Also, I tasted a small piece and it was unpleasantly crunchy.  I am not an al dente pasta fan, so crunchy noodles are simply not acceptable.  In the hope of fixing the crunchy texture and still achieving the perfect pasta substitute, I put the thing back in the microwave for another five minutes.  This slightly improved the crunchy texture, but I was still not seeing the result I was hoping for.

   My next step was to try to saute the not-very-noodly-squash-insides-that-were-actually-more-like gobs-of-wet-dryer-lint with some olive oil and garlic (as suggested by one of the WW members).  Maybe that would improve the consistency and magically morph this yellow glop into pasta...

   Still not pasta.  But I resolved to be a trooper and pretend anyway.  So I finished preparing the additional elements of my dinner to top the yellow crap I had just haphazardly prepared.  So I sauteed some sausage...

  ... added some tomato pasta sauce...

... and then topped my "spaghetti" with the sausage, sauce and some mozzarella cheese.  The end result looked pretty at least:

   I made a valiant effort to eat my creation in its entirely but I am sad to report that I failed.  I got through about a third of it, then proceeded to just pick out the sausage and cheesy bits and leave the nasty squash behind.  I suppose I should clarify that no, I did not expect a vegetable to taste and feel exactly like pasta, but I was hoping for a bit more of a similarity than what actually transpired in my kitchen.  Even though I am a die-hard squash hater, I still gave the icky spaghetti squash a try and now I can honestly say GROSS when someone asks if I like it or not.  My answer is a great big "hell no".  Oh well.  At least now I know.  On to bigger and better things.  I'm thinking my next experiment will be an eggplant.  Recipe ideas would be greatly appreciated.