Spaghetti squash noodle bowls aka most delicious thing on earth

Hello all. It's day 11 of the Idiots on paleo and things are going swimmingly. It's also (finally) time for Mr. Idiot to come back from training to sit in the mud and the rain and back to me, so we're very excited about that. He's not home yet and I imagine they're having him do important finishing up things like sit around, complain and waste time, so in the meantime let me tell you about perhaps the world's single most incredibly delicious food. I found this recipe on the awesome paleomg.com and if you're looking for truly good paleo fare, this is a place to check out.

One of the nicest things about eating paleo is that you're forced to get really inventive with your food, and to try out vegetables I didn't even know existed. Which is where I'm going with this Spaghetti noodle bowl.

This dish is really really easy, and so good that Mr. Idiot and I were fighting over who got the leftovers.

Now, I'll come clean here to those of you following this blog who are doing a strict paleo thing before we get to the recipe. I used regular Sriracha, not the paleo stuff, and I used soy sauce, not coconut aminos and peanut butter. Now I know none of those are paleo friendly but I cannot abide wasting perfectly good food, and I have soy and Sriracha and peanut butter at home already. I just can't bear the idea of getting rid of them and replacing them when there is really nothing wrong with them. I'm also of the school of thought that being fanatically strict about anything is a path to failure. You have to give yourself a little wiggle room or you're going to snap eventually and binge on things you miss. So, 95% of the time, what I eat is paleo. But I'm not throwing away perfectly good peanut butter, soy sauce or breadcrumbs. I just can't. /endrant.

Now, the main attraction:

Spaghetti Squash Noodle bowl with (aptly named) OMG sauce.

1 spaghetti squash cut in half with seeds and threads removed

Big handful of fresh spinach

1 head of broccoli separated into smaller bits

1 lbs of turkey

1 tbsp Sriracha

1tbsp coconut aminos

That's it for the main part of the dish. The recipe on paleomg.com uses pork, not turkey, but I had turkey in the freezer and it was bloody good anyway.

Now, arguably the most important part of this dish is the sauce.

OMG sauce

2 tbsp almond butter (I used peanut)

juice from 2 limes (I realized I didn't have any so I skipped it)

1 ½ tbsp coconut aminos (or soy sauce if you're me)

2 tbsp Sriracha

½ tbs honey

1 tsp sesame oil (I didn't have this, so I used extra coconut oil)

3 tbsp coconut oil

2 tsp ginger grated

2 cloves of garlic, minced

½ tsp crushed red pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and put the halved spaghetti squash cut side down on a baking tray. The omgpaleo recipe says to bake for 20 minutes, or until the skin gives when you poke it, but it took us almost 40 minutes to get ours to give, so start earlier than you think. I think it depends on the size of the squash, and unbeknownst to us we got a massive one. Apparently.

Once the skin gives when you poke it, take it out and scrape out the inside. If you've cooked it enough, it will come out looking like noodles. Put in a bowl and set aside.

In a big pan over med-high heat put your turkey (or pork or whatever) in with 1tbsp of Sririacha and 1tbsp soy sauce. Cook it through and then put it in the bowl with the squash and set aside.

Put the broccoli in the pan and lower the heat a bit. Once it's browned slightly, put the lid on the pan and let it steam. We added ½ a cup of water so it wouldn't burn. I think when you cook with pork there's more fat, so there's more liquid to steam the broccoli, but our pan was pretty dry. So, use your brain, don't burn your broccoli. Once the broccoli is going, add the spinach and put the lid on. 

Once the spinach wilts, lower the heat again (to low) and add the squash and the turkey.

Let that simmer while you make the sauce.

Combine all the ingredients and mix together. Because coconut oil is a solid, and peanut butter isn't much of a liquid either, you'll have to microwave the sauce to get everything to combine properly. Once that's done, pour over the noodle bowls and eat.

Watch your plate though. This stuff is so good people are likely to try and steal it.