So I really tried to come up with a shorter, catchier name for this dish but just couldn’t do it. So Spaghetti Squash with Chicken Sausage, Spinach and Sundried Tomatoes it is.. I mean I didn’t want to leave out anything? Feel free to comment with your suggestion if you have one. It’s gotta be better then what I came up with.
Anywho, it took me a solid five minutes to remember what I did this past weekend. It’s Friday so remembering back that far is apparently difficult for me right now. It’s been a long week. In my last post I briefly mentioned that a hurricane was headed our way down here in Charleston and that we were all a little nervous. But that’s really all I said about it. Mainly because I had heard ‘hurricane’ like 100 times that day and frankly I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. But now that it’s passed I will say that I think we got out okay. There was some flooding downtown (which it floods down there even if there’s a heavy rain so no real surprise there) and a whole lot of power outages but overall I think the damage wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been or as we were expecting. It’s crazy because even though downtown flooded pretty bad, they know how to bounce back in no time. Like I honestly don’t know how they do it. I went downtown for a meeting the other day and you literally could not even tell a hurricane and torrential flooding just happened a week prior. I’m always amazed how our city manages to come together in times of trouble and dismay and bring things back to normal like nothing ever happened. It’s truly incredible.
All this hurricane talk was going to get me to the point of telling you what I did last weekend, but of course I got off on a tangent, per usual. The mayor ordered an evacuation of the area a few days before the storm was supposed to come through so we went up to Charlotte to stay with family for the time being. We packed up all our animals (2 cats and a dog) and brought them up with us. My poor parents had a total of 7 animals staying in their house with the additional of their pets.. 4 cats and 3 dogs. Can you picture it? It’s as crazy as it sounds. Although it was under not so great circumstances that we were staying there it was actually really nice. We were in Charlotte for 6 days so this gave us plenty of time to catch up with good friends and to also spend time with my husbands side of the family and our two young nieces. Luckily when we returned to Charleston our home was in one piece and there was no damage.. Oh the relief!!
This weekend we are going to do lots of fall things and I am SO EXCITED. Tonight we’re carving pumpkins with some good friends in the neighborhood and tomorrow we’re heading to Columbia for the SC state fair. Although I’ve been trying to be pretty strict with my diet lately, I can’t not eat a few fried things at the fair.. I mean, come on. I’m giving myself a pass this weekend and it’s gonna be awesome. Looking forward to sharing the fun with you in my next week’s post. Speaking of fall, this spaghetti squash dish has fall written all over it. It’s filling, yet healthy, and so delicious. I forgot to picture it with the pasta sauce.. I think that really adds to it. Hope you enjoy!!
- 1 large spaghetti squash
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- salt and pepper
- 1 package Al Fresco Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage
- 2 cups raw spinach
- 1/4 cup sundried tomatoes
- 1/2 jar of your favorite pasta sauce (optional)
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice the spaghetti squash in half, lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
- Drizzle each half with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Then sprinkle oregano, salt and pepper on top. Place on a greased or lined baking sheet, cut side down.
- Put in the oven and set timer to 40 minutes.
- While squash is baking, cut your chicken sausage into smaller slices and add to a pan with remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Cook this for about 7 minutes then add in the spinach and sundried tomatoes. Cook until spinach is wilted down. Set aside.
- The squash will be done when you can can stick a fork in the meaty part and it is soft. Scrape the meat of the squash with a fork to create ''spaghetti'' and place in an 8x8 casserole dish.
- Pour the sausage, spinach and tomatoes over the squash. Then top with your pasta sauce!