Well, we are officially into week 3 of Lent, which means we’ve had two Fridays with absolutely no meat. Now, I understand people are vegetarian and do this all the time, but I am not one of those people. I rarely have a meal that does not contain some meat item as the staple ingredient. However, there was one Lenten season a few years back that I gave up meat for the first week, then did vegan, then to raw and finally a juice week and let me tell you, that was the most challenging Lenten season I have ever had. I truly felt like I was making a huge sacrifice.
So, week 1 was a rather boring meal and not too far off my normal eating. Week 2 brought it’s own challenges. Since our mission trip puts on a pasta dinner every Friday during Lent, I am surrounded by pizza, pasta, rolls and ice cream. As I’ve mentioned to my coworkers who bring in sweets, I can walk past it maybe twice, but then I really start craving the sugar. #whydoesmyofficehavetopassthekitchen?
I came prepared for the pasta dinner with some spaghetti squash to make a mexican bowl. The pasta dinner was cranking out meals (seriously, we provide an all you can eat meal including drink and dessert for a measly $6/ person) and we almost forgot to get our squash in the oven. Well, after adding black beans, tomato sauce, peppers, onions, and a little bit of cheese, I popped them into the oven. We waited 40 minutes (it was a convection oven set at 375*), and the squash still wasn’t done. However, it was 7:15pm and if we didn’t get the kids moving on clean up we were going to be there till 9pm. We scrapped out what we could of the squash (basically the bottoms weren’t done but the sides were fine) and gave it a whirl.
I added a bit of sour cream to mine and it was delectable.
Recipe:
1 Spaghetti Squash cut in half like a boat (you will want to cook the squash prior to adding the ingredient and then cook for another 15 min.)
1/4 Black beans
1/2 Red, Yellow, or Green Pepper
1/4 cup Mozzarella cheese
1/8 cup onion
1/2 cup spaghetti squash (we make a homemade one for the pasta dinner)
Sour cream (if you want)
Add all of the ingredient, minus the sour cream, once the squash is almost all the way cooked. Then finish cooking. You can either top it with sour cream, or leave it alone. I pulled mine out of the squash and plated it while my mom just ate it straight from the squash.
Hope you enjoy and create your own variations of this awesome vegetable dish! Next weeks dish is pinterest inspired, so stay tuned!
Be confident! Be fit! Be you!
confidentandfitmom 