A spaghetti squash of a different color...

For those of you in a hurry to cook your squash, you can cut it in half then lay each half face down in a flat plate that has about 1/4-1/2" water. Nuke each half for 7-8 minutes then continue with your regular recipe.

I've done Spaghetti squash, acorn, and butternut squashes this way for years...

Linda

I am enjoying this thread! :-) As a new entre into this discussion related to odd green spaghetti squash: I also have little green weirdos in my patch! I was looking at them today, trying to debate whether or not they are "done", or need a little more yellowing-up. From reading this blog, it has become apparent that these will never yellow-up. I think I'll harvest one and see what happens :-)

I am in what I affectionately call "Zone 2.5". I generally have between Memorial weekend and sometime in mid September to grow everything. Mellons have forever been out of the question. Does anyone live in either Zone 2 or Zone 3 who has been able to grow peppers and melons successfully?

Welcome aboard, Kitty! I grew some Minnesota Midget Cantaloupes and Golden Midget Watermelons this summer. They are both short season, so might work for you up there.

Thanks, msrobin! I will try those next year. Did you get the seeds (or starts) online? In a garden store/greenhouse?

I planted spaghetti squash for the first time this year, and do I have a crop! It pretty well took over my garden. I too was surprised by several of the green watermelon look-alikes, but they are definitely sp squash. I was wondering when to harvest, and got a lot of good information from this strand.

What to do with spaghetti squash? The sky is the limit!

I have found this to best diet aid available. SS has only 40 calories a cup!

Yeah, yeah, you can cook it and fork it up to look like spaghetti and serve tomato sauce over it, but you can do SO MUCH MORE. Did you know that SS with yogurt blends up into a creamy consistency suitable for sauces and dips?

Mix it with cumin, S&P and 1 TBL of peanut butter to make a delicious hummus substitute with many fewer calories than hummus made with chick peas.

Blend half with yogurt and the same seasonings/PB used for Asian noodles to make sauce and serve it over the other half, fork-stranded into "noodles," Asian Peanut noodles.

Add it to frozen diet dinners to extend the amount of food in the package with little calorie increase.

You can make the sauces/dips savory or sweet with seasoning, depending on your need. Cinnamon and Splenda, chili powder, even turkey seasonings or dressing seasonings to serve with turkey. Use your imagination! Maybe I should write a cookbook on the wonderful diet recipes you can make with spaghetti squash. Save the seeds and grow them next year for your own bountiful supply.

Kitty
Have you tried doing them the way they do in England? Over there if the temps hit 70 degrees people are dropping of heat stroke. Just build a large cold frame covered with plastic you know like the "garden camps" that Gardener's Supply sells. Put in a nice thick layer of manure covered with good loose soil "et voila". I actually have pictures of a 17th/19th century "melon pit" if I can scan them in I will.

What a helpful forum this is! I know part is older, but still very helpful! I was searching for some of these answers when I stumbled upon this site. I think I am hooked:)

That's the beauty of Dave's, the answer is often already there, even if you have to hunt a bit :). And if you can't find it, no-one minds having a question asked again, it gives us time to think about it, and maybe come up with some new ideas...

Many thanks for this great thread ...this coming Spring I will be growing SS for the first time and this info has been very good, the recipes in particular.
I have grown pumpkins and squashes before, but this is a new one to me (we are about to go into Spring).
Great to know they can be stored like the other members of the family.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/spaghetti-squash-i/detail.aspx

Thanks again ^_^

Hi,
To the origional poster,
Did you have acorn squash plant close to your spaggetti squash? It looks what I have come up with. I have been experimenting with it myself, cross pollinating them to make a change in the flavor a bit. ;0)
If you haven't, I wonder if a few of you have bought seeds from the same company? Maybe they have cross pollinated there.

As far as fixing the spaggetti squash...
I bake it in the oven, ( cut in half lengthwise ) till done. Then I make my own spagetti sauce and add on top of the spaggetti squash when it is done. Spaggetti in a boat, lol. Makes a nice dish that way.

Spagetti squash when it is done growing should be a nice bright yellow color.

Nope, no acorn at that time, but this was a "first time" garden anyway, no opportunity for crossing the season before. It did turn out to taste and cook like spaghetti squash in the end:)

I add my cooked spaghetti squash to breakfast sausage that has been cooked with garlic, onion, and red bell pepper. Salt and pepper then add in a small amount of either Alfredo sauce OR parmesan cheese....delightful!!!!

This thread has led me to Dave's Garden--when I started a search to identify this volunteer in my compost bin. Spaghetti squash? It's BIG!

It's most likely a hybrid of some kind. It could be something like a Jack O' Lantern pumpkin. There are only 4 species of squash and pumpkins generally grown. For example all summer squash, acorns, spaghetti, and some pumpkins as well as the small warted gourds all belong to the family C. pepo. They will all freely cross and you'll end up with some strange looking offspring.

I cooked one of these the other day and it is a type of spaghetti squash but a bit denser than normal. A hybrid, yes. It's tasty!

I know these green SS! Last year I wanted SS in the worst way. I planted seeds and then bought a seedling 6-pack from a community college sale. A funny person had put in 5 SS and one pumpkin. I was so puzzled at the odd SS. Turns out pumpkin and SS cross pollinate like mad. I had a whole range of green, or striped, or spotted, white and gold SS. Some had threads inside like normal SS, some were more creamy. All were edible and good. Now this year I did not plant any pumpkin, but I have some volunteers from last year, so here we go again!
Here are pics of some of my crosses, all from the same plant.
Gardening is so interesting!

I'm so glad I found this thread! I, too, have green spaghetti squash like some of the ones shown above...except mine were all planted from a packet of Burpee seeds (it says Winter squash, Vegetable Spaghetti), which shows a ripe, solid-color bright yellow squash on the front. Every single one of mine looks like the photos I've attached, green with darker or lighter stripes and mottling. The plants have a bush-type habit rather than the long vines I usually get with squash and pumpkins. I am wondering how I will know when these are ripe, i.e., will they turn bright yellow? It looks like some of the larger ones are starting to turn a little yellow, but they still have the very noticeable stripes and mottled look. (BTW, I do have acorn squash planted as well, but not in the same bed, and I have hand pollinated all of the spaghetti squash, so I don't think it's a cross-pollination scenario.)