Wednesday

Spaghetti squash with caponata
Warm white bean salad (recipe in the comments from December 16, 2007)
Green salad with tarragon dressing

Hot tea
Zucchini bread
______________________________________________________________
I just saw an article about bringing kids into the kitchen to cook with you featuring spaghetti squash. I will be up front and say spaghetti squash is not my favorite squash, as it's not as flavorful as many squashes. BUT it is a great vehicle for sauces. We used a jarred version of caponata (a tomato based sauce with eggplant, roasted red peppers, olives, and capers) today with great success. I am always careful with jarred sauces to check the nutrition profile, especially for saturated fat and sodium. This one seemed exceptionally low in both and VERY flavorful! T was, indeed, in to making the "spaghetti". The white bean salad is a standard "adding protein" side we use and has a summer and winter version. Both wow me every time we have them.

Prep Notes
Difficulty: Easy
Chopping: Onion, red pepper, garlic, thyme, basil, parsley, spaghetti squash (scraping up the strands)
Time: 25 minutes to steam the squash (unattended), 30 minutes to do the rest
Make ahead: All of this would be fine reheated.

Our reaction:
"We will be using this caponata again!" OR "All salad all the time tonight."

The kid report:
T was verbally very enthusiastic about this meal, but didn't eat much. Then again he didn't eat much dessert either, so maybe he just wasn't very hungry.