Spaghetti squash with sun-dried tomatoes and an egg

Ok, I admit it. I am a sucker for fad diets. The first time I heard about the Zone diet (from a college professor who had joined our table at dinner one night in the campus dining hall), I immediately took steps to alter my eating habits accordingly (he said it was about having roughly the same amount of carbs and protein, so whenever I would have pasta, I would add an equivalent amount of tofu to my sauce--at the time, I wasn't eating the school's beef).



Then, in my Atkins phase where I was trying to cut out pasta, rice and bread, I tried spaghetti squash. I would make tomato sauce and use the squash in lieu of noodles. The squash itself is pretty cool, the way it becomes stringy when cooked, but it really wasn't the same as a big pile of noodles. My version of tomato sauce back then is not as good as what I make now, so that could have been part of it too.


After that, I put aside my spaghetti squash ambitions. Perhaps it just wasn't for me. Besides, it can be quite large and a bit too heavy for me to carry back from the grocery store.


I decided to revisit it recently though, after seeing it in a cookbook my mom gave me and seeing it as part of a quick weeknight meal on The Kitchn. First, the version in the cookbook looked and sounded good, but it said it could take as much as two hours to roast. But then The Kitchn version was considered "quick" and offered another way of cooking the spaghetti squash: cutting in half and sort of steaming it in the oven by adding water to the pan with the squash. I liked this method because I could prepare the other parts of the meal or workout while it was cooking.


After cooking the squash, I sauteed it in some olive oil with some chopped up sun-dried tomatoes and garlic. Meanwhile, I slowly fried an egg.



I added parsley and tons of grated parmegiano cheese. What I might add next time (because this meal is definitely going into my repertoire):

• toasted breadcrumbs
• caramelized onions
• fresh tomatoes
• oven-roasted tomatoes
• sausage

I don't know what it is about a sunny side up fried egg, but the simple addition of just one really made a huge difference. I would call it positively Zone-like.