Southwestern Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti squash is a great thing. It's fun to eat, it's tasty, it's healthy and it is extremely versatile. Since it is not very flavorful on its own, you can pretty much do anything you want with it. You can make it sweet or savory, whatever you feel like. I've done the typical 'spaghetti' by adding a nice tomato sauce and pretending the squash is actually noodles and I've also added butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and eaten my squash for dessert. Recently I've been looking for something new and different to do with my spaghetti squash though. When I saw this southwestern version I knew I had to try it.

This dish combines the cooked spaghetti squash with onions, peppers, corn, beans, cilantro, cheese and lots of cumin and chile powder. The result was a slightly spicy, nicely seasoned light and healthy main dish. And making boats from the squash shell makes a fun presentation (I wasn't thinking and accidentally cut the ends off my squash so the 'boats' were a little unstable, but still fun). You get a lot of food out of one spaghetti squash this way, I got four servings out of the one recipe, and the recipe only uses half the squash so you can play around with the rest of it for fun. The leftovers reheated quite well the next day, they were a quick and delicious lunch. This is one to make again in the future.

Grab a nice spaghetti squash and get it cooking

The rest of the players

All chopped up

Fresh cilantro adds so much to a dish

Start cooking those peppers and onions

Add the spices and then 

throw in the corn, beans and cilantro

Mix it all up

Scrape the flesh out of the squash

Add the squash to the veggie mixture and 

then pile it all in the squash boats, 

don't forget to top with cheese

Place it all under the broiler for a few minutes

until the cheese in nice and melty, 

then eat!

Southwestern Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

From Bev Cooks
Ingredients

• 1 spaghetti squash 
• 2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1/2 red onion, chopped 
• 3 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 jalapeno pepper, minced (leave seeds in for more heat) 
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped 
• 1 Tbs. ground cumin 
• 1 Tbs. Mexican oregano (if you have it, I don't and so I just used my regular oregano) 
• 1 Tbs. chili powder 
• 1 can black beans (drained and rinsed) or about 1 cup dried beans, cooked 
• 1 cup frozen corn, thawed 
• coarse salt and freshly ground pepper1/2 cup freshly torn cilantro, plus more for garnish 
• 1 lime 
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese 

Directions
Start by cooking the spaghetti squash. You can either by roast it on a baking sheet for 50 minutes at 375 degrees or if you're in a hurry, just poke some holes in it with a fork and stick in the microwave for 12-15 minutes, turning every few minutes. Let cool another 30 minutes, then cut in half. Spoon out the seeds, then using a fork, scrape up the flesh.

Heat oil in a medium skillet. Add the onion, garlic, jalapeno pepper and red bell pepper. Saute 2 minutes. Add cumin, Mexican oregano, chili powder and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Saute another minute. Add the beans, corn and cilantro. Stir to combine. Squeeze in the lime juice and give one last stir.

Add in half the squash to the bean mixture and stir to combine. Taste and season accordingly.

Stuff each squash half with the mixture and top with grated cheese. Stick it under the broiler until the cheese melts and gets all brown and bubbly.