A few years ago, in a restaurant in Maui, I had my first-ever bowl of spaghetti squash. It was served with a delightfully rich marinara sauce and topped with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. It was one of the few vegetarian items on the menu, which is why I chose it, but it also was listed as a "Healthy Choice", meaning that the dish - a giant, filling bowl - contained less than 300 calories.
We all have nights like this: you're exhausted from a long day, the kids have activities to get to, and everyone's starving and rangy. You need to get dinner on the table quickly, before everyone — including you — has a meltdown. Your instinct is to just throw up your hands, pick up the phone, and dial the nearest pizza place.
Put down the phone! I have a better solution. This tasty pasta dish can be on your table in thirty minutes or less — quicker than a pizza delivery, and much healthier.
When I was a swinging single girl, I used to eat the following things for dinner on a rotating basis: instant rice with steamed broccoli, popcorn, and pasta with jarred sauce. Regardless of the brand I purchased, the sauce never had quite the right flavour for me—it was always too sweet or too garlicky, too bland or too bloat-inducing. I wasn't much of a cook back then (obviously), so I didn't know how easy it can be to make a basic tomato sauce.
