Trick or treat, smell my feet

You know, I’m really glad I did *not* spend $50 on a Pottery Barn kids costume. I mean, yes they’re cute- but I have a kid who is just.not.into.costumes. Gasp. What he WAS really into was handing out the candy. Fine by me.

I would love to start some sort of Halloween tradition where we sit around the table and have a nice meal before the trick or treating starts, but last night was kind of chaotic. I’m glad that I did prep work on Sunday. The twice-baked squash we had was awesome and worthy of a post. Plus it made for a pretty quick meal to reassemble once we got home.

Twice Baked Spaghetti Squash with Chicken and Cream Sauce

1 large spaghetti squash

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded and cut into 8 strips

1 fresh garlic bulb (in the pics I have two- I made a second for a future recipe)

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon olive oil

1 8-oz block light cream cheese (Neufchatel cheese)

1 ½ cup skim milk

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

¼ teaspoon Italian seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

To make:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a fork, poke a few holes in the squash and microwave for ~6-8 minutes, or until sliiiiightly softened. This makes it much easier to cut in half (lengthwise). Scrape out the seedy guts. Place cut-side up on a sheet pan. Drizzle with 1 Tbsp olive oil and sprinkle some salt and pepper. Bake for an hour. While that is baking, cut the top third off of the garlic bulb. Place in a piece of aluminum foil and drizzle teaspoon of olive oil over the exposed cloves. Wrap up and bake for an hour as well. When done, extract the golden brown cloves from the bulb and mash up into a paste. Set aside. Meanwhile, use a fork to shred the cooked squash. Keep oven turned on.

To make sauce, cut up cream cheese into ~1” cubes. Add to small saucepan along with milk and Parmesan. Stir in garlic paste and seasonings. Whisk together until mixture starts to boil. Remove from heat.

Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and grill on the stovetop until internal temp reads at least 165 degrees. Place two pieces of chicken in each shredded squash, top with sauce, and bake for ~20 minutes, or until sauce is bubbling. Each squash half serves two.

Instead of using the oven, you could opt to just microwave the squash. It'd just be...twice microwaved squash. Which is fine. No one would judge.

Per serving: 490 calories, 29 g carbs, 30 g fat, 35 g protein