"Everything" Spaghetti Casserole-YUM

Those of you that know me are thinking, "Janna would not make something that sounds that unhealthy..." and you would be right my friends ;)  I decided to take a Spaghetti Casserole and make it MY WAY!  I substituted Spaghetti Squash for noodles, used a low-calorie spaghettie sauce that I doctored up and packed it full of VEGGIES! It was actually a two day process and for best results I suggest making it on day one, but waiting to eat it until day two.  As I'm sure you know, anything Italian is better after it has had time to meld.  Plus the vegetarian version was delish, but when we added the meat it became more filling and flavor-full.  Mind you, I had no recipe and threw it all together, so these are all estimations.

Get 2 small (or 1 big) spaghetti ssquash-poke some holes in it and bake it on 400 for an hour.

Once it is done and cooled, cut it in half, scrape out the seeds and sticky part and then pull a fork through the meat, so that it comes out like spaghetti! (Hence the name ;)

While the squash is cooking, prepare the sauce.  I use Hunts canned original and it works just fine.   Pour it in a saucepan on medium and add some minced garlic, basil, italian seasoning, pepper, etc. to taste.  I also add crushed red pepper, but it depends on if you like it SPICY!  Just taste as you go and add what you like!

Spread out the spaghetti squash on the bottom of the casserole dish, pour over some sauce and then begin adding veggies.  We used spinach, bell peppers, red onion and olives...yum!

Then spoon low-fat or no-fat ricotta cheese on top of the veggies (I was pretty liberal lol).  If you want to go ahead and add the meat (1 lb. ground turkey, sauteed and italian seasoned), I would add it between the veggies and ricotta.

Pour the rest of the sauce on top and add more seasoning if you'd like....

MORE veggies ;)

and then top with some cheese if you like, but we didn't and we didn't miss it either!  I just put a little fresh parm on top and called it DELISH!

This was after we dove in and before we added the meat:

This is me adding the meat:

I pretty much just folded in the meat...it wasn't too difficult.

This is after:

Obviously it was good... We both agreed that we liked it both ways, but the meat was more filling and added some complexity.  The great things about casseroles is that as long as you like all the ingredients, it will probably turn out awesome....I know I've never met a casserole that I didn't like!

Tell me how it goes for you ;)