Paleo Spaghetti

Our first Paleo dinner! Here's the recipe, followed by a quick review:

Ingredients (makes 4 servings)
1 lb. ground turkey
3 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 T. tomato paste
1 bay leaf
2 (28 oz.) cans whole, meaty tomatoes
2 spaghetti squashes

1. Cook the ground turkey in a large pot until no longer pink. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and set aside.

2. Use the same pot to cook the garlic, carrots, celery and oregano in the olive oil over medium heat, until just tender. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, ground turkey and bay leaf. Break up the tomatoes with a spoon. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 45 mins.

3. In the meantime, heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Cut spaghetti squashes in half length-wise. Remove and discard the seeds. Put the halves cut-side down on a baking sheet, and bake for 28-35 mins, checking after 25. Do not overcook or they'll be too mushy. It should easy break into strands with a fork to make pasta-like strings.

5. Serve with sauce over spaghetti squash.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT:


Erin's Opinion: It wasn't bad, exactly. But it wasn't really good either. There was nothing wrong with it. It actually tasted almost exactly like my grandmother's cabbage soup, which is only helped by the cabbage-like texture of the spaghetti squash (did I do it right?). So apparently some people (like my grandmother, my mother, my grandfather, etc.) LIKE that flavor, so I must not have done too badly. It's just rotten luck for me that it was never one of my faves. So this dinner wasn't a great kick-off to our new diet. I ate it, but I'm not in a rush to ever make it again.

Chad's Opinion: The change from spaghetti to "spaghetti" was interesting to say the least, and a little crunchy (in a vegetable sort of way), but I liked the way it had been cooked. It could serve as a viable replacement for pasta, if someone wanted to drop carbs. The sauce...loved it! And she is right...it tasted like Nana's cabbage soup. I, apparently, liked the dish more than anyone else...had two bowls worth, and a little of our son Cody's, after he rejected it. I'd have it again, if it were served to me, but, a little like Erin, I wouldn't actively go seeking it out.