Spaghetti Squash Marinara

After half a day Saturday and all day Sunday doing nothing but staying in bed, you could say I had somewhat recovered from my total exhaustion of the week before.  I used a personal day at work Monday, and slept in until around 10:30.  But, I knew I had to again become a part of the land of the living.  My hubby and I had to run an errand in Garland, and since we were so close already, we drove just a little further to Rockwall so we could eat lunch at Ruby Tuesday.  Ruby's is a restaurant we remember fondly from back home in Virginia from years gone by.  There are a few Ruby Tuesday's in Texas, but none that close to home.


While perusing the menu (I always ordered a burger back then), I noticed that they had a new section on their menu (but then again-I was a teenager-who knows how new it actually is-or, come to think about it-maybe it has been there all along, and I just never cared.  But I digress...) called "Petite Plates".  They are apparently smaller portions of healthy items.  My eyes quickly noticed the Spaghetti Squash Marinara Pasta. I changed my mind about a dozen times before the waitress came, but I kept coming back to this dish.  I was intrigued, to say the least.  I have heard many times that you can use spaghetti squash as an alternative to spaghetti to lower your calories.  But I am a carb lover.  I never had a desire to try this at home because I just knew nothing could take the place of my pasta.  Since I wasn't feeling the greatest though (I was dealing with exhaustion, but I also picked up a nasty cough and some congestion along the way), I figured I would try it-I wasn't that hungry, so if I didn't like it, no biggie-I would survive.


It finally arrived-spaghetti squash covered with a red pepper marinara and tossed with some sliced zucchini, with some parmesan cheese on top.  I had at first considered that even if I liked the spaghetti squash, would I like the red sauce?  Many restaurants with lower calories options have a fresh tomato and onion sauce that put over pasta that tastes more like fresh veggies than it does sauce.  But the sauce was impressive.  It tasted like real sauce.  Then I dug a little deeper to the zucchini, and it was tasty as well.  (Certainly not meat, but definitely tasty.)  And last but not least, I finally tried the spaghetti squash.  And I liked it!  I was tasting it expecting it to be some crunchy vegetable (think the consistency of a steamed carrot), but it was not!  It did have some crunch compared to spaghetti, but that was very minimal.  I only ate about 1/3 of my meal before getting full, which was unfortunate, because I really would have enjoyed finishing my meal.  This meal is a definite to order again-assuming it's not another 10 years before visiting Ruby Tuesdays.