Spaghetti Anyone?

For tonight's dinner, Brian had a big plate of spaghetti and I opted for a vegetable alternative to spaghetti: spaghetti squash.  Is there a nutritional advantage to selecting roasted spaghetti squash over the typical egg pasta so many people know and love?  The answer is...it depends.  Very conclusive, right?  Both are low in saturated fat and sodium, and neither has any cholesterol.  A cup of cooked spaghetti contains approximately 220 calories, 42 g carbohydrates and 8 g protein.  It has a healthy dose of B vitamins as well as 50% of the daily value of the mineral selenium.  A cup of cooked spaghetti squash on the other hand, contains about 42 calories, 10 g carbohydrates and 1 g protein.  It is an excellent source of calcium, manganese, potassium, dietary fiber and vitamins A, B and C.  Ultimately your level of activity and nutrition goals will determine which option is best for you.  While I'm sure I will always be a pasta lover, spaghetti squash is an incredibly delicious alternative, particularly with a chunky sauce, and it's a bonus to pick up such a nice array of vitamins and minerals without overloading on calories and carbs.

Tonight I experimented with an old favorite recipe from The Moosewood Collective called Tomato Wine Sauce.  Ordinarily this vegetarian tomato sauce is incredibly flavorful on its own, but today I decided to add crumbled Italian sausage for added complexity and texture.  The ground fennel in the sauce paired beautifully with the fennel-seasoned sausage.  Once the squash was roasted, I used a fork to break the soft flesh into strands of "spaghetti" and then stirred it into the sauce.  With some freshly grated Locatelli cheese, this meal turned out to be a delight to my senses!