Spaghetti Squash

Ingredients

• spaghetti squash
• olive oil
• salt
• black pepper

Preparation

Option one – cut the squash lengthwise, clean out all the seeds, drizzle with olive oil, salt and black pepper. Place it on a baking tray with the open side of the squash resting on the tray and the closed side, skin side up.
Bake at 200 degrees for about an hour, until a fork goes into the squash easily.
Scrape the squash flesh with a fork, not a spoon, so you get the squash strands that look like spaghetti.
Add sauce.
Note: Sometimes it is very hard to cut the squash lengthwise, so you can put the whole squash in the oven for about ten minutes; the skin will soften and you will be able to cut the squash lengthwise easily.

Option two – cut the squash crosswise into rings, remove all the seeds from each ring (pictures below), drizzle with olive oil, salt and black pepper.
Bake at 200 degrees for about an hour, until the squash is soft.
Remove the squash flesh with a fork, not a spoon, so you get the squash strands that look like spaghetti.
Transfer to a bowl and add sauce.

After baking the squash you can treat it just like cooked spaghetti and add different sauces as you would for spaghetti: Bolognese sauce, tomato sauce, cream sauce, cooked vegetables, mushrooms and onion. You can also eat the squash as it is, without any sauce.

In the pictures below there are two variations:
The first – filling of fried onion with mushrooms
The second – with a tomato and pepper sauce