As we transitioned to a gluten-free lifestyle, we used alternative pasta noodles. The corn noodles were the worst of the bunch, but a quinoa/corn blend was palatable. However, the price of these alternative pasta noodles was not something I could stomach. I missed the days of a family size box of spaghetti for a $1 on sale. Well, that will never happen in this house again!
We eventually discovered spaghetti squash, it had a delicious taste, especially when roasted, butter and salted then paired with our favorite spaghetti sauce. But, spaghetti squash is so troublesome! It doesn’t cut in half easy, it’s big, have to be seeded….oh how I missed the days of throwing some noodles into a pot to cook up! Spaghetti squash took forever to prep (unless done in a microwave, but ew!)
So how about regular Italian or Mexican squash? We happen to have a fun gadget that makes spiral cut fries, shredded cabbage and the like. It also takes zucchini or Mexican squash and turns them into long spirals!
And these are fun to make!
At our local farmers’ market zucchini squash runs about $1 to $2 a pound. I bought the 5 fat round Mexican squashies (my name for them) for about $2. We peeled the squash (don’t have to, but I find the skin bitter,) cut off the stems then stuck the little round buddies onto the spiral cutter. My teen daughter wanted to do the rest of them.
To prep them, I steamed the “noodles” for about 15 minutes, so they are tender but still a bit firm. Too much cooking will make them too soft. I added a pinch of Himalayan pink salt to toss then served with our homemade meaty sauce.
Easy to toss like flour pasta and get an extra helping of veggies!
We love spaghetti, and the sauce is what makes the recipe. The best sauces are the ones that simmer all day long, using fresh herbs and tomatoes, but there isn’t always time or energy for that. When in a hurry, we use prepared spaghetti sauce in a jar, with a few extras added for extra flavor, otherwise just brown the ground beef and simmer with the prepared sauce. It cuts down prep time significantly. However, I do like my sauce to have simmered all day. That’s not always possible so my recipe is a compromise, one that could be done when home early enough to prep for dinner. I happen to have a small bell pepper and lots of basil and oregano growing in the summer sun, so I wanted to put them to use!
Garden fresh basil! 
Here’s my silly explanation of ease-ingredients-time on how I could grade sauces:
Not Easy Best sauce – fresh herbs and tomatoes – all day
Almost Easy Better than Good sauce – fresh herbs, box or jarred tomatoes – about an hour
Easy, Pretty Good sauce – prepared sauce in a jar with some extras – 20 minutes
Lazy Easy Eh Sauce – just the premade jar of sauce! 5 minutes!
We like our sauce meaty and chunky! 
Here’s our almost easy spaghetti meaty sauce recipe to go with our super easy squash noodles.
1 small to medium onion, finely chopped
3 gloves of garlic, minced
1 small bell pepper finely chopped
1 lb grass fed ground beef (don’t compromise your health and get the scary pink slime stuff)
1 box of diced tomatoes
Handful of fresh basil, finely chopped
About 5 springs of oregano, finely chopped
Salt to taste, if the diced tomatoes are not salted.
In a large stock pot, brown the ground beef with garlic, and onion. Add the finely chopped green pepper, herb and chopped tomatoes. Finely chopped will help the sauce cook faster. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered for one hour.
After an hour, check the sauce, adjust the temperature, taste a bit to see if extra sauce needs to be added. Simmer some more.
Prep the squash or zucchini by using a spiral cutter. Boil water for the steamer, add “noodles” to the steam basket and steam for about 15 minutes. Toss with a pinch of salt.
Serve hot, with the sauce and a bit of shredded Parmesan.
Erika Loves Coffee 