Friend of Julie: Spaghetti Pie

Wow - I can eat Spaghetti Pie and lose weight - how amazing is that? I encourage you to modify this recipe to suit your taste, as I have done. I used a mixture of sausage with sage and hamburg, but you may prefer the original recipe, which only calls for Italian sausage. I also skipped the suggestion to use pizza sauce and instead finished off a jar of opened tomato sauce. Make this your way, but any way you make it, as the texture is different from anything else in my usual menu. Plus, it's a good idea to expand our menus and not make the same foods again and again.

My slice of Spaghetti Pie

Prep time: 25 min.
Cook time: 1 hour
Total time: 1 hour 25 min.

Ingredients

• 1 large spaghetti squash
• ½ pound Italian sausage 
• ½ pound hamburg
• ½ onion, diced 
• 3-4 pieces of garlic minced or chopped(optional, I love garlic and couldn't resist adding it)
• 1 cup of your favorite tomato sauce (pizza sauce or any kin of tomato sauce)
• fresh basil (or 1 teaspoon dried basil)
• Italian spice blend (or your favorite blend of Italian spices)
• salt and pepper, to taste (optional - I did not use either)
• 3 eggs, whisked 

 Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Place whole spaghetti squash on a baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the skin of the squash gives when you press on it. When it's done, set aside to cool.

I baked two spaghetti squash so I have one to make Lemongrass Shrimp Soup tomorrow

3. After the squash has cooled enough to handle it, discard the seeds and then place the spaghetti threads into an 8×8 baking dish.

Use a fork to remove the squash in spaghetti-like threads.

4. Place a large fry-pan over medium heat and cook Italian sausage, hamburg, and onion. Break meats into pieces as they cook.

5. Add the chopped or mince garlic to the pan as the meats cook.

Chop 3-4 pieces of garlic

6. When the meats are no longer pink, place the meat in a colander to drain the fat and then return the meat to the pan.

Cook the meats until no pink remains.

7. Chop the basil (if you used fresh basil) and then add to the pan with tomato sauce, and spices, then mix everything in the pan well.

Add fresh chopped fresh basil and other spices to the meat mixture

8. Add sausage mixture to a baking dish and mix well with spaghetti squash threads.

9. Add whisked eggs to the baking dish and mix everything together until you can no longer see the eggs.

10. Remove mixture from the edges of the dish before you put it in the oven, as the egg batter and stuff you see in the image below burned and made the dish a pain to clean.

11. Place dish in oven and bake for 1 hour or until the top of the mixture forms a slight crust that doesn’t give when you press on it in the middle of the dish.

I didn't wipe the mixture from the edge of the dish and later it was hard to clean.

11. Let dish rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Second time around I wiped the mixture from edges of the dish - much easier to clean.

When I made this dish a second time, I kept an eye on the oven and when the top started to burn I covered the dish. It came out less crunchy than the first time and I'm torn as to which way I like it better. I also used less squash and I sprinkled in a little bit of corn. I liked the extra texture the corn added and having less squash it gave space for the egg flavor to be present.

This is one of my new favorite recipes now. When you make this dish, think of the flavors you like on pizza and use those ingredients so this dish comes out really flavorful!

Inspiration for this dish came from the recipe Almost 5 Ingredient Pizza Spaghetti Pie by paleOMG's. I modified this recipe to meet my taste buds and you should do the same!