Spaghetti Squash with Peanut Sauce

Yesterday was Mother's Day. A day for all of us to celebrate the amazing women in our lives and for those of us who are moms to spend a day being pampered by our children. Boy Wonder and Mini Me love to do it up for me, it's quite sweet when kids are young. They brought me a card and flowers and showered me with love. That lasted all of 5 minutes and then they went back to fighting and arguing like every other day. All I wanted for Mother's Day was a day without arguments and not to have a fight over dinner. Seemed like that shouldn't be too much to ask for, right? Riiiiight.... Well for all of you Mother's out there who have the same wish as me I can't promise you that your kids won't argue with each other, but I can give you a recipe that might quell the fight over dinner and give you a little piece of mind that you are doing something good for their little bodies (and yours!). We all know that there is precious little that kids like more than peanut butter and noodles (well, besides candy and ice cream). So based on this premise I give you Spaghetti Squash with Peanut Sauce....

Cooking a Spaghetti Squash:

• Prick the spaghetti squash all over with a skewer so it will not burst while baking (same way you would do with a baked potato).
• Place whole squash in a shallow baking pan.
• Bake in preheated 375 F oven for 1 hour.
• Once cool enough to handle, cut the squash in half
• Scoop out the seeds and toss them out
• Then, take a fork and scrape all the "noodles" out. 

 Peanut Sauce (taken from cooks.com)
2 teaspoons peanut oil
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger
1 cup water
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2/3 cup smooth all-natural peanut butter
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons hot chile sauce

In a small saucepan, saute the garlic in peanut oil over low-medium heat. Add the water, soy sauce, and coriander, and bring to a boil. Add the peanut butter and turn the heat to low. Whisk well until the peanut butter and oil are combined. Mix in the maple syrup, vinegar, and chile sauce. If you are making this dish for kids you will want to gradually add in the hot sauce to make sure it's the appropriate level of spiciness. 


Next, plate your spaghetti squash noodles the way you would use pasta noodles, add some veggies (I used lightly steamed broccoli), then add a little protein (we opted for baked tofu), and top with the peanut sauce. The spaghetti squash has a very bland taste, so layer on that peanut sauce. Don't worry, its a good fat ;)