1 food 5 ways, Cashews, Way #4: Spaghetti Squash with Cashew Sauce

Shout out to Lazy Smurf for including me in yesterday's Veganmofo Roundup of her fantasy food day! With nearly 700 bloggers participating this year and all the amazing stuff being posted, this was quite an honor.

Yet again, the cashews were begging to be put in an Asian dish. I don't recall anything like this being offered at Panda Express (or whatever local eatery's menu used to reside in my glovebox). So it's probably not exactly Asian. I guess it's more accurately called Asian-inspired comfort food.

This is one of my absolute favorite meals. I make it every chance I get. I'll admit to you that I usually cook the squash in the microwave and buy the cashew butter from the grind-your-own machine at Whole Foods Market. But this time, just for you, I made this the old fashioned way, right down to toasting my own cashews.

Spaghetti Squash with Cashew Sauce

I'm not exactly going to post a recipe for the whole dish because the sauce/squash ratio is such a personal thing. Some days I want more sauce. Some days I want more squash. Yeah, probably not. But somebody somewhere probably wants more squash. What I will give you is the cashew sauce recipe and the directions on how I cook the spaghetti squash.

Cashew Sauce

(I got the general ingredients at some point from a recipe on the Fat Free Vegan database for peanut sauce, but I haven't looked at it in a long time and just made this to my taste)

• 1 cup raw cashew pieces
• 2 Tbsp lime juice (juice of one large lime)
• 1/4 cup of water (plus more for desired thinning)
• 1 Tbsp Coconut Aminos (or soy sauce if you can use it)
• 1/2 tsp crushed garlic
• Cayenne pepper to taste (I'm a 4-5 dash kinda girl)

Preheat oven to 350. Spread the cashews on a rimmed baking pan/cookie sheet and toast until golden brown. I've had the timing vary quite a bit, so start checking at about 3 minutes. This time it took 7. When you check it at 3, go ahead and give the cashews a little stir.

Remove cashews from oven and let cool.

(Before you actually make the cashew butter, go ahead and raise the oven temp and get the squash baking. You'll have PLENTY of time to finish the sauce while that's baking)

When cool, place the cashews in a food processor with an s-blade. Then turn that processor on and let it go! In the first couple minutes, you might see some cashew crumbs or butter getting stuck in the bottom of the bowl. If so, stop the processor and use a spatula or table knife to loosen that up. After the first few minutes, you'll see the butter really start to form. Continue to process until really smooth.

Mine took about 7 minutes to become a nice thick butter. Depending on the size of your cashew pieces and the power of your processor, it could take a little less or a little more.

1 cup of cashew pieces yielded 1/3 cup+1 tbsp of cashew butter and it looked like this:

After the butter is made, transfer it to a shallow bowl with a little room to mix (a standard cereal bowl is good - not the tiny bowl in the picture) Add the lime juice, garlic and 1/4 cup of water. Use a fork to break up the cashew butter into the water until it gets smooth. (It's almost like cutting in shortening to make a pie crust. If you use the homemade butter or the grind-your-own, this takes a little effort. If you get a smoother jarred butter it will probably be pretty easy.) Stir in the coconut aminos. Add extra water to desired thinness. I use 1/8 cup more. If you use jarred cashew butter, you might not want any at all. Add cayenne pepper and salt to taste.

I dare you not to eat some of it with your fingers before the rest of the meal is ready. I bet you can't resist.

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Baking the spaghetti squash

There are tutorials on baking spaghetti squash all over the internet and I haven't found one yet that has instructions that gets me good spaghetti squash. I'm not sure about anybody else, but I think spaghetti squash should be SOFT. There shouldn't be any crunch left in it at all. Spaghetti is not crunchy when cooked correctly and spaghetti squash shouldn't be either ::steps down from soapbox::

So here's how I do it:

Preheat oven to 375. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Even wrap it around the edges of the pan so all of the inside of the pan is covered. (this will save you A LOT of clean up) Pour in water to get a thin layer over the whole pan (about 1/2 cup)

Wash the outside of the spaghetti squash (so nothing gets inside when you cut it open). Cut off the top stem then cut the squash in half lengthwise. Use your hands and/or a spoon to clean all the stuff/seeds out of the middle. You can save the seeds and roast them too.

Put the squash halves in the pan with the cut sides down. Enclose the squash on the pan with foil so that steam wont escape as it's baking.

Cooking time depends on the size of your squash, but i find most internet tutorials' times to be much too short. Or my squashes are way too big. For this last squash (a little bigger than a football) it took a little over 2 hours. Start checking at about an hour if you have smaller squash. The flesh should come out in strands. If it does that, taste a strand or two. If it still crunches, keep cooking! When it's all soft, use a fork to get all the flesh out of the squash. It should be really easy. If it's not, it's not done.

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Take however much spaghetti squash you want (that bowlful in the picture is 1/2 of that giant spaghetti squash...and yes I ate all of it. A couple hours later, I'm still really full - so you might want to start with a little less than you think you want)

Mix in some chopped green onions. Then mix in sauce to your desired ratio and enjoy!

Coming tomorrow: My very first cookie recipe!