Fresh Herb Dinner

Last weekend while watching Giada on Food TV, she made an herbed quinoa as a side dish and I thought it looked so good. I wanted to do the same thing, but I had a spaghetti squash I hadn’t eaten yet, so I decided to use that instead of the quinoa. It turned out great!

If you haven’t cooked a spaghetti squash before, you cut it in half, scoop the seeds out, drizzle it with olive oil and salt and pepper and bake face down for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

It should look like this when its done:

Using a fork, scrape the insides out

Just one spaghetti squash filled this whole bowl!

So, once the spaghetti squash is cooked, you can make the dressing:

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup fresh basil
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1 TB. fresh thyme
2 tsp. lemon zest

Whisk the dressing together and add it to the spaghetti squash. Since the squash had cooled, I heated everything in the microwave for about 1 1/2 minutes so it was hot. Then I sprinkled a little asiago cheese on top.

Since I had all the fresh herbs, I decided to use those to make baked chicken breasts.

I chopped up the herbs, basil, thyme and parsley and sprinkled that over the chicken. I squeezed lemon juice on that, and threw the lemons in as well as about 5 cloves of garlic which I kept whole. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

So, it turned out great! I hardly ever cook with fresh herbs, but I’m going to try to start doing that more, it’s tastes so much better!

What are your favorite herbs to cook with?