Replacing Spaghetti, Low-Carb Style

I picked up a spaghetti squash at the farmer's market Saturday, along with some onions, a few zucchini, and a yellow squash (and myriad other things that aren't part of the picture above). Tonight, I baked the squash and then mixed it with 2 cans of El Pato and an onion, a zucchini, and the yellow squash, which I had sauteed in some beef tallow. On the other part of the plate are 4 pastured chicken thighs that I also picked up at the farmer's market. And sorry for the poor lighting, but I was hungry and didn't feel like moving the food for a better picture.

So what's my point? Essentially I could have turned this into a standard Italian dinner by using spaghetti sauce instead of El Pato. Spaghetti squash is a perfect replacement for spaghetti. If you think about it, spaghetti really has no flavor. It is merely a carrier for whatever sauce is on it. Spaghetti squash has a really mild flavor and I find it to be tastier than spaghetti, since it actually has a flavor. The flavor is slightly nutty and the texture is a touch crunchy. No more need for "low-carb spaghetti" since you can avoid the crappy grain products and use an all-natural item for your Italian fix. I was also able to fit in quite a range of other vegetables as well (although it's weird mixing winter squash and summer squash).

Now for the nutritional differences (1 cup of each):
Whole-wheat Spaghetti
31g net carbs
174 calories
Grain-based
Processed

Spaghetti squash
8g net carbs
42 calories
Plant-based
Unprocessed

I think the winner, hands down, is spaghetti squash, even when compared against the "healthful" whole-wheat spaghetti.

To bake a spaghetti squash, cut it in half lengthwise, remove the seeds, and place both halves face down in about 1" of water. Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes. Then simply run a fork through the center of the squash to bring out the middle in strands, hence spaghetti squash. Top it with your favorite spaghetti sauce and some meatballs and you have Italian.

And the tasty beverage you see behind the plate is a Young's Oatmeal Stout. This stuff is the Nectar of the Gods with hints of chocolate, coffee, maybe a touch of caramel and a thick lingering head. Were I a big-time drinker, I think I could put a keg of this stuff away.

First, We Have to Render Fat

Last week, I realized that I was running a 15 cubic foot freezer to keep about 2 cubic feet of food cold. Not being a fan of wasting electricity (freezers work harder the less frozen stuff there is in them), I decided to consolidate it all into the freezer with the dog food. While doing so, I found several pounds of beef suet that I hadn't touched since making pemmican for my ski trip in January. So I decided to do something with it....namely, I decided to render it into cooking fat. What you see above is the result of leaving it on the stove for a few hours of melting, occasionally straining it and putting it into the jar. I didn't take a picture of the leftover bits, but when you render fat, the fat turns to liquid and separates from the protein and other parts leaving pure liquid fat and bits of funky looking stuff (industry terminology). These bits of funky looking stuff went in the trash. Harder core people than I may have some use for them, but I just tossed them without searching for any use for them. I now have 2 jars of delicious, healthful, grass-fed fat for use in cooking. I probably could have squeezed another 1/4-1/2 a jar from the leftovers, but I had been at it for 2.5 hours, bedtime was nearing, and I was tired. This fat has a delicious buttery flavor and its high level of saturation (OH MY GOD, I'M GONNA DIE!) gives it great level of stability in cooking to go with a high melting point.

If you do render fat, make sure you are prepared to clean because this stuff is sticky! Going back to that high melting point, it is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is the stability that it lends to the fat in cooking. The curse is that it does...not....want...to...come....off. I had to run the hot water on full blast to get the fat to melt, give 2 scrubbings of the pot, spoon, and strainer that I used, and lots of work to clean up drips here and there. It was definitely worth it, but it's not the easiest job in the world.