Spaghetti Squash Boats with Spinach, Tofu & Porcini Mushroom Butter


Hello friends! It's been a while, I know. I had to take a little break from blogging. Lift just got too busy and I had other things to take care of. But now I'm back!

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day. Any fun activities? We keep it pretty low-key in this house. Neither of us really subscribes much to the hype of Valentine's Day. Why do we need a day to force us to spend a ton of money to prove our love when we should just be showing it every day?

That goes for significant others as well as friends and family. Be sure to always let the important people in your life know that you love them. You don't need a day. I think the world would be a much better place if people just remembered to love.

Now I'm sounding like a hippie. I promise I'm not. Ha! But I digress. We didn't do much for Valentine's Day. The weekend consisted of catching a few movies (Deadpool and Zoolander 2), binge-watching Critical Role and, of course, the return of The Walking Dead.

I'll start with the movies. Deadpool was AMAZEBALLS!!! Seriously, really good. Probably now one of my favorite Marvel movies. Not kidding. It's a must-see. I will probably catch it again at least one more time while it's in theaters.

Then there was Zoolander 2...

I'm not entirely sure what to say about this movie. I love the first Zoolander. It was stupid and outlandish, but also completely hilarious. To this day, still one of my favorite comedies. Who among us didn't get a teary-eyed when Derek finally broke out Magnum and stopped that throwing star?

The second installment took stupidity to an unnecessary and unsustainable level. And this is coming from someone who typically loves that brand of stupid humor. It attained a level of weirdness that brought forth very few laughs from the theater crowd and more just left you spending most of the movie wondering, "what am I even watching?"

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I saw it. One to check off the list. I don't regret seeing it. And if you liked the first Zoolander I would recommend checking out 2 at least once. That being said, I can't see it being a repeat watch for me.

So what else did we do for V-Day weekend? Critical Role. A lot of Critical Role. What is Critical Role, you may ask? It basic terms, it's a live stream Dungeons & Dragons game of the most epic proportions. A group of voice actors gets together and streams their legendary campaign, and the results are thoroughly entertaining. Since we started watching we haven't been able to stop. The group really gets into character. It's awesome.

And, of course, who could forget the mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead? I won't write much about that one, in case you're a fan who hasn't watched the latest episode. No spoilers here. But I will say this was one of the craziest, most intense episodes of the series to date. It felt more like a season finale than a mid-season premiere. Can't wait to see what the rest of the season has in store!

Oh yeah, and I made some delicious noms. Because I never pass up the opportunity to make a fancy Instagram-worthy meal. We started with a herbed baked Brie, followed by filet mignon with porcini mushroom compound butter and a side of garlic spinach, and finished it off with Cabernet chocolate truffles. Everything was SOOOO good! Who needs a fancy dinner out when you can make this at home for a fraction of the cost?


Brie is Bae
Steak in front of the TV FTW.
The truffles started melting literally the second I took them out of the freezer. ;P
There was just one problem: I was so excited about getting all the food out I completely forgot about the porcini mushroom compound butter I had made that was sitting in the fridge. I served the steak without it. It wasn't until after we were done eating I remembered it was there. NOOO!!!

So now I'm left with this stick of mushroom butter with no purpose. Of course, I had to come up with some way to use it. I was in Publix this morning grabbing a Monday morning kombucha and I happened to noticed tofu was "buy one get one free." So I started brainstorming some ways to incorporate the butter into a tofu recipe. Suddenly spaghetti squash came to mind, and I started laying the groundwork for this recipe.

It's not often I make a meal like this during the week. I live alone and I'm a busy professional. I love cooking but I just never seem to have time outside of the weekend. And I usually have very little motivation to cook a meal for myself. Most of the time, my dinners consist of eggs and oatmeal. Don't judge! You other busy 20-somethings do it too! Anyway, I considered waiting until Friday night to make this so I could make a bigger dinner for Nate. But there was just one problem with that: I wanted to try the recipe with tofu. No way my man was going to eat something with tofu in it. He'll want the meat. So I decided to suck it up and make this for myself. What's great is I just kinda piled everything in the squash boats and set it to make while I was showering post-gym and getting ready for the next day. Minimal effort FTW. And quite tasty, too.

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~ Ingredients ~

Makes 2 servings

1 whole spaghetti squash
7 oz. tofu, chopped into small cubes
2 handfuls fresh spinach
1 shallot, chopped
½ tsp. minced garlic
2 Tbsp. porcini mushroom compound butter (recipe here)*

*Note I used Earth Balance Buttery Spread and removed the salt from this recipe to make it a little cleaner.

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~ Directions ~

Preheat oven to 400°. Cut the spaghetti squash in half length-wise, scoop out the seeds and place open side up on a baking sheet.

Inside each of the hollow "boat" halves of the squash, place a handful of spinach, half of the tofu, half of the shallot and 1/4 tsp. minced garlic. Place 1 Tbsp. of the mushroom butter on top of each.


Ready for the oven.
Bake until squash is soft - about 40 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve warm and store leftovers.