Confession Number One:  I hate pasta salad.  Always have.  Pasta salad is mushy and tastes like bad Italian dressing.  So you can understand my hesitancy in calling this dish that I absolutely love a pasta salad.  This salad hasn’t even seen a bottle of Italian dressing and its crunch-factor laughs in the face of all things mushy.

The one thing this dish does have in common with pasta salad is that it’s beyond simple to make.  Orzo.  Feta cheese.  Toasted pine nuts.  Dried cranberries.  Chopped arugula.  Olive oil.  Lemon juice.  Salt/pepper.  Done.  Confession Number Two: I’ve absolutely eaten a large bowl of this for dinner before.  So, here you have it, a pasta salad that is nothing like pasta salad.

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I had never tried spaghetti squash until a few months ago.  In a quest to find a healthier “pasta substitute” last fall, I stumbled upon several recipes calling for spaghetti squash in place of traditional pasta noodles.  To be honest, I’m fairly certain I had to Google a picture before going to the store to make sure I grabbed the right type of squash.  Even still, I’m pretty sure I nearly bough a butternut squash instead.

My initial intention was to transform this non-pasta item into a mac and cheese dish.  However, as I began working with the squash I decided to abort the mission and instead of trying to make it something it wasn’t (pasta) and make it delicious as itself!  I would caution people that want to use spaghetti squash in a dish that calls for marinara or red sauce (or some other traditional pasta dish).  The squash has a distinct flavor that I think would likely clash with the red sauce.  That being said, when you accept that it’s not pasta, it’s never going to be pasta, and begin working with flavors that compliment the nuttiness of the squash, it’s truly delightful.

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