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Mock-aroni Pie

Eating like a cavegirl is paying off: I’ve lost five pounds in about a week. It’s amazing that I’m eating so well and losing weight: I’m not hungry and I feel very healthy.  I have lots of energy and I’m happy in general. Today I had a serious craving for a snack but I called my sponsor and that craving went away (after I had a boiled egg as a snack instead).

So over the weekend my mom and sister were in town visiting and we got to talking: this whole Eating Primal thing is fine, and it seems to be working for me, but can we use this newly found ambition to eat differently and think about food differently to find something else to apply it to? Perhaps, remaking a dish that we love into something more “healthful?”

So after much discussion we settled on a family favorite, a dish chock full of carbs and, by proxy, sugar: the Macaroni Pie. Cheese, noodles, more cheese, milk and eggs. It’s a simple dish but I was sure we could make it just as awesome, but with less sugar and carbs.

Enter spaghetti squash. As a stand-in for noodles, this beauty has been at this for ages, but I couldn’t find any overt references to any “macaroni” pie on the Internet.  My mom and I felt very pleased with how this little dish came out. It’s spectacular as a side, and even though it requires a bit of a time investment, it’s a special-occasion dish in my family anyway, so the little extra prep work is alright. And, I suppose, so are the savings on the carbs!

This stuff is insanely rich.  I suggest trying a few different kinds of cheeses to layer the flavors. I really enjoyed it using Parrano cheese and a raw cow’s milk sharp cheddar. Mmm!

Ingredients

Overall cooking and prep time, about 2 hours.

• 1 medium spaghetti squash
• 1.5 – 2 cups shredded cheese (i like sharp white cheddar!)
• 2. cups heavy cream
• 2 eggs
• butter (to grease the casserole dish)
• salt and pepper

Directions

1. To prepare the spaghetti squash, cut in half, lengthwise and scoop out seeds and membranes.
2. Preheat oven to 325-deg F.
3. Place cleaned squash cut side down on a tin-foil-lined baking sheet.  Prick the skin of the squash so some steam can escape and place into oven on baking sheet. Roast for 45 minutes.
4. While squash is roasting, grate cheese.
5. Once squash is roasted and you can handle touching it, use a fork to scrape the strands of the squash along its insides.  Place strands in a bowl and set aside.
6. Grease a deep casserole dish liberally with butter, all the way up the sides and all over the bottom.  Preheat over to 350-deg F.
7. Layer the squash and cheese in the greased casserole dish.  Squash on the bottom, then cheese, then squash, then cheese, then squash, then cheese.  Your last layer should be cheese.
8. Whisk together two eggs and the heavy cream.  Season this mixture with salt and pepper (about a half-teaspoon of each or less).  Pour this mixture over the layered cheese and squash.
   Note: When you tilt the dish, you should see a little liquid move to the edge.  If you don’t see any, you might want to top off the casserole with a little extra cream.
9. Place casserole into oven and bake for 40 minutes, checking regularly.  If the top starts to brown but the mixture is still jiggly, loosely tent tinfoil over the casserole and let it continue to bake.
10. When ready (could take up to an hour or more, depending on the depth of your casserole dish) the consistency should be firm with a little jiggle, a little looser than quiche.

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