Day Five

It's day five, and Friday to boot!

Seth had work at eight in the morning, so I woke up at 6:40 to make his breakfast and lunch. We had another amazing fritatta, and I packed his lunch with a sliced apple as a snack. When he left I went straight back to bed.

Lunch for me consisted of boiled dinner leftovers. Not too exciting so I waited to blog about it. ;)

Tonight's dinner: spaghetti!

Now obviously we can't eat pasta, so I picked up an adorable spaghetti squash. They're super easy to cook and make an effortless pasta substitute. I preheated the oven to 375 and threw the squash onto a pan after piercing it to bake for an hour.

The sauce only takes about 25 minutes to prepare, so I chilled and ate apple slices with cinnamon as a snack. I usually don't snack during the day with fruit, but lunch and dinner were pretty far apart.

Perfection.

So when the time came, I chopped up peppers and onions and threw them into a pan with olive oil. I cooked the peppers first for a few minutes since they take longer to cook.

When they were almost done, I took diced tomatoes and tomato sauce and warmed them in a saucepan. I used to religiously use Hunt's tomatoes. One day in the store I was chatting on the phone with my mom in the canned tomato aisle and was telling her how much I loved Hunt's. A man stopped me and walked me over to a different brand of tomatoes to show me a more healthier choice.

The sodium content in Cento crushed tomatoes are miles lower than in Hunt's. They're a little pricier but they're just as tasty. For this recipe I chose diced, not crushed, but either works. I then cooked my ground beef, and with a dash of salt, pepper and parsley my sauce was good to go. Simple and delicious. Sometimes I like to add squash and mushrooms to spaghetti sauce but tonight I didn't.

My spaghetti squash finished baking and I sliced it in half to remove the pulp and seeds. I put them aside to toast later.

From here, you can pop the squash in the microwave for five minutes and the squash strands come out perfectly and ready to eat.

This recipe is similar to my goulash, which happens to be one of Seth's favorite dishes that I make. He was really impressed that it was like eating spaghetti itself. I was super excited that I could make a tasty substitute : )

After dinner and cleanup, I rinsed the squash seeds to make a toasty, healthy snack for later. I toasted them in olive oil and salt at 375 for fifteen minutes. They sort of taste like popcorn...

This concludes day five! We're both happy and full. Bring on the next twenty five days!