Now there’s a word–and food– that hasn’t passed my lips since going gluten-free 5 years ago.

I’ve scarcely even thought of blintzes in that time, until recently when I was challenged by my friends at Green Valley Organics Lactose-free, for whom I serve as consulting dietitian, to come up with some recipe ideas for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot later this month.  (Cue FTC disclosure music here!) Shavuot being a holiday in which it is customary to eat dairy foods, my mind went straight to Cheese Blintzes.

And once I got cheese blintzes on the brain, I wasn’t able to shake them.

The problem, of course, is that cheese blintzes are a veritable digestive Armageddon for people like me.  All that lactose-rich creamy filling… the flour-based crepe… the dollop of sour cream on top…  I’m getting cramps just thinking about it.

It didn’t take long, however, to find workarounds to all of these problems.  The biggest hurdle, as it turned out, was convincing myself that I am indeed the type of person who makes Cheese Blintzes from scratch.  The last person on earth who made cheese blintzes from scratch, and this is a well-documented fact on Wikipedia, was my Grandma Esther (whose Salmon Croquette recipe you can snag here).  And sometimes even *she* bought the frozen ones.

You can imagine, then, my sheer surprise and delight to discover that making Cheese Blintzes from scratch is fast fast fast!  And easy!  It requires a very small number of ingredients which get combined in a matter of seconds.  The filling need not be cooked… just measured out and mixed.  You make some pancakes, scoop some filling, wrap the blintzes, and bake for 10 minutes.  It was faster than cooking a pot of rice.

The blintzes turned out to be, as their name implies, pretty freaking spectacular.  The crepe was so spongy, the filling so creamy and sweet… this gluten-free, lactose-free version is not compromised in any way from the original.  I daresay I even like it better.

Once you’ve made these blintzes, check out my gluten-free, lactose-friendly version of Grandma Mary’s Noodle Kugel… another Shavuot classic in which you can utilize the remainder of the Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese called for in the blintz recipe below.  It’s a shanda to waste food, after all!

Recipe: Pretty Freaking Spectacular Gluten-free, Lactose-free Cheese Blintzes

Recipe adapted from Living Without Magazine

For the crepes (yields about 8):

• Vegetable oil, for greasing pan
• 3 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup gluten-free all- purpose flour blend* of choice, more if needed
• ½ teaspoon xanthan gum (use only if all-purpose flour blend does not contain xanthan or guar gum)
• 1½ cups lactose-free milk of choice, room temperature; more if needed

Filling:

• 1 cup Green Valley Organics® Lactose-Free Sour Cream
• 1 cup Lactaid® cottage cheese
• 1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

*Note the difference between GF All Purpose Flour Blends vs GF All Purpose Baking Mixes.  You want the former.  The baking mixes contain chemical leavening agents like baking soda or baking powder and are NOT suitable for this recipe.  Also, read the ingredients of your All Purpose Flour blend.  If it contains xanthan gum or guar gum, you can omit the xanthan gum called for in the recipe, or add it sparingly as needed to achieve the desired texture of your batter.

Directions:

1. Lightly grease an 8- to 10-inch nonstick skillet with vegetable oil, like grapeseed or canola oil, and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and butter until well combined. Mix the flour blend with the xanthan gum and blend into the egg mixture. Pour in the milk in a slow, steady stream, whisking constantly until batter is smooth. Add more milk or flour by the tablespoon, if necessary, to ensure a smooth and thin batter.

3. Heat prepared skillet over medium heat. Using a large ladle or spoon, place a generous ~¼ cup batter into the center of the hot pan, swirling to coat the bottom of the pan in an even layer, taking care not to spread the batter too thin.  (If batter is too thick and resembles more of a thick pancake than a larger, thinner crepe, you may need to add more milk.  If it’s too thin and your crepe isn’t taking shape, try adding a smidge of xanthan gum.  Results may vary based on the brand of flour you’re using.)

4. Cook the crepe until edges begin to brown slightly, about 2 to 3 minutes, and flip with a wide spatula. It will flip easily when ready.  Cook the other side for about another 20 to 30 seconds until the pancake is set. Turn the pancake onto a plate lined with a moist tea towel and cover to keep warm.

5. Repeat with remaining batter, layering pancakes one on top of the other. Cover after each addition.  You do not need to re-oil the skillet in between pancakes.

6. In a medium-size bowl, mix filling ingredients until well combined.  You will likely have some extra, which you can use as a topping.  Alternatively, save it for breakfast tomorrow and use it as a spread for toasted gluten free Cinnamon Raisin bread.

7. Preheat oven to 400°F.

8. To assemble blintzes, place one pancake flat on a plate. Place 2 TBSP filling on the flat pancake, about one-third of the way from the edge closest to you. Fold the bottom of the pancake over the filling, turn in the sides toward the middle and roll away from yourself to create a cylinder. Repeat with remaining pancakes.  Fear not if the filling seems a bit too liquid; just wrap it carefully and place open seam down on the baking pan.  It will all firm up during baking, and will turn out better than you could have imagined.

9. Place rolled blintzes in preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. (Alternatively, you can sauté blintzes in a bit of butter or oil in a pan over medium-high heat until crisp, about 5 minutes, flipping halfway through the process.  I baked them.)

10. Let blintzes sit for a few minutes before plating and serving to allow filling to set.  Serve warm or at room temperature, plain or garnished with extra filling, lactose-free sour cream, or fruit compote.

Related posts:

1. A New Lactose-Free Yogurt Hits the Market
2. LACTAID (Finally!) Launching Lactose-Free Yogurts Nationwide
3. Teaming up with the best (Lactose-Free) Dairy Farm

I’m talking, of course, about Fiddlehead Ferns, the odd-looking coiled fern shoots who made their first appearance in my kitchen two years ago.

To learn more about Fiddleheads than you ever thought you’d want to know, listen to a recording of this week’s Last Chance Foods segment on NPR’s All Things Considered, where I sat down with host Amy Eddings to discuss the finer points of edible ferns.

And to learn all about my dirty little kitchen secrets, watch the post-show video, 60-second Stir Fry, where Amy fires a lightning round of questions at me and gets me to admit to doing things I tell most of my clients not to do.

No related posts.

Whoa.  This question totally blew my mind.  Other than the obvious phenotypical distinction (#1) that a cupcake has frosting and a muffin doesn’t (or shouldn’t), I was stumped.

And so, the research began.  I learned quite a bit about baked goods esoterica in my quest to better understand the taxonomy of carbs, as a matter of fact.  Here are some interesting distinctions:

• (#2): There are differences in process: Cupcakes are made by creaming together butter and sugar, then adding the remaining ingredients.  Muffins, as other quickbreads, are made by adding all the wet ingredients to all the dry ingredients.  As a result, cupcakes tend to have what food scientists refer to as a “more tender crumb.”
• (#3) There are differences in ingredients: The platonic ideal of a muffin is mostly flour with an egg, a relatively small amount of sugar (~1/4 cup) and fat, usually in the form of oil (~1/4 cup).  Cupcakes should have at least double the sugar and fat, and usually more eggs as well.  As a result, they’re richer and sweeter.

One might expect, based on point #3 above, muffins to be healthier and lower calorie than cupcakes.  And while this may have been true at some point in the 1950s, I can assure you that this is rarely the case.

For one thing, there is the portion issue.  New York City muffins are on steroids.  I recently confiscated an uneaten breakfast muffin from a client of mine who came to see me for weight loss.  (Yes, I am mean like that.  If you come to my office with a muffin and you are trying to lose weight, I will take it away from you and make you a bowl of oatmeal instead.)  I proceeded to lug this enormous muffin home so that I could weigh it on my kitchen scale.  It was 8oz exactly.  As in, a half of a pound.  As in, if I had another one in the bag I could do bicep curls with it.  When I consulted the USDA’s National Nutrient database to determine how many calories this 8oz (or, 227 gram) muffin likely had, I discovered that the USDA defined an “extra large” commercially prepared Blueberry Muffin as being “only” 168 grams (and 660 calories).  In other words, the standard NYC breakfast muffin was 35% bigger than the standard extra large muffin.  Based on this data, I estimated it to clock in at 891 calories, with 43g of fat and 61g of sugar.  A more “standard” 5oz muffin (which, incidentally, is considered “large” by the USDA), such as one you would find at Au Bon Pain or Starbucks, has about 500-550 calories.

Compare that to your standard cupcake, which, despite being topped with a crown of pure butter and sugar, tends to come in more modest sizes.  The cupcakes at Au Bon Pain are between 350-400 calories; or, less than their muffin counterparts by quite a margin.  Even among more generously-sized cupcakes, such as those sold at Crumbs, you’re looking at a calorie range of 480-790 calories per cupcake according to the sources I consulted.  That is still less than the gargantuan muffin I confiscated.

In other words, these days you’re probably better off having a cupcake for breakfast than a muffin– if you didn’t bake it yourself.

Which brings me to the next chapter of the muffin story: my Sysiphean quest to find recipes for truly healthy muffins to bake for myself.

Close your eyes, if you will, and imagine being the poor kid of a dietitian mom who kills everyone’s joy by exposing how many calories are in their favorite indulgences.  Are you with me?  You are a toddler growing up in America who has never tasted ice cream, Goldfish crackers, a chicken finger, a slice of pizza, a hot dog or a lollipop.  Your mom gave you cake on your birthday–which was awesome–and then the cake never resurfaced again.  This mom of yours, not completely oblivious to the deprivation she is subjecting you to, wants to find a compromise: something a little bit sweet but still, on balance, nutritious.  Your mom wants to bake you muffins.

And so: I googled.  I weelicioused.  I checked all my usual haunts for “healthy muffins,” “whole wheat muffins,”… you name it.  All of the recipes I encountered had *at least* 1/2 cup sugar–and most had more.  And if 1/2 cup sugar doesn’t seem like a lot, here’s the math that I did: 1/2 cup is 24 teaspoons.  Or, two teaspoons per muffin in a recipe that makes 12 muffins.  If the average ADULT female is only supposed to have 6 teaspoons of added sugar in her diet per day, should a toddler who weighs only 24 pounds have two in a single muffin?

And then I found a lower-sugar muffin recipe… that was ALSO gluten free… from the unlikeliest of sources: Giada Di Laurentiis.  Better known as the Food Network’s queen of glutenous Italian cooking.  Not only did Giada’s recipe use one of my favorite gluten free flours– high-protein, low carb Almond flour– but it also called for a full cup of grated vegetables.  The best thing about this recipe, of course, was that I could eat the muffins, too.

These muffins were a cinch to make, had a moist and delicate crumb and tasted delicious.  With 1/3 cup maple syrup (I left out the raisins), each muffin would only have ~1 tsp sugar.  If you make mini muffins as the recipe instructs, the minis would have about 1/2 tsp each.

Recipe: Gluten-Free Carrot Zucchini Muffins

Adapted everso slightly from Giada Di Laurentiis

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup brown rice flour
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup grapeseed or canola oil
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup grated carrots (from 1 medium peeled carrot)
• 1/2 cup grated zucchini (from 1 medium unpeeled zucchini)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 mini-muffin cups with (1 1/2-inch) paper liners. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine together the flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
3. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the oil, syrup, and egg. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Mix in the grated carrot and grated zucchini.
4. Using 2 small spoons, fill the prepared muffin cups 3/4 full with the batter and bake until light golden, about 15 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes. Transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Approximate nutrition info per mini-muffin (assumes batch makes 24): 70 calories, 5g carbohydrate, 1.5g protein, 5g fat (mostly the heart-healthy, monounsaturated kind).

Double the stats above if you make 12 regular sized muffins instead and you get 140 calories each.  Pair this with some plain yogurt, a hard boiled egg or a piece of fruit and you could still have a muffin-based for breakfast for under 300 calories!  That’s even less than a cupcake!

Related posts:

1. The Gluten-free Grammys
2. Gluten-free Energy Bar Roundup
3. Gluten Free Baking: Getting Started

Which is why it never occurred to me that peanut butter could be–or needed to be–improved upon.  Peanut butter is about as close to a perfect food as I can imagine. Delicious. Loved by toddlers and octagenarians alike.  Inexpensive.  Nutritious.   Naturally high protein and low-carb.  Satisfying even in small portions.  Vegan.  Kosher.  Generally non-perishible at room temperature.  Short ingredient list: just peanuts and salt.  Even relatively more processed versions that contain some stablizing fats and a hint of sugar are still extremely nutritious and not measurably different from the least processed versions.  How many other foods can boast these same claims?

There is, however, one problem with peanut butter.  And the problem with peanut butter is that so many people have a problem with peanut butter.   As in, several of my clients who want to lose weight can’t keep it in the house because they’re too tempted to eat tablespoons of it straight from the jar.  Heart-healthy and diabetic-friendly as peanut butter may be, a small portion goes a long way calorie-wise.  It broke my heart to have to advise these clients to steer clear of satisfying, low-glycemic peanut butter because it might get the better of them.  Who am I to deny others the pleasure that is peanut butter?

I recently heard about a new product called PB2 when a dietitian friend of mine tweeted about it.  I checked it out and discovered that some clever folks at Bell Plantation had gotten the idea to squeeze the bejesus out of peanuts until they’d removed 85% of the fat, and then market the remaining powdery peanut pulp as a Powdered Peanut Butter product.  Note that this is VERY different than other “reduced fat” peanut butters you may have come across on the market.  Those other products take out some of the peanuts and replace them with… SUGAR… in the appetizing form of corn syrup solids.  Not only is this a nutritionally bankrupt swap (trading out the heart-healthy fat from peanuts with heart-unhealthy sugar), it doesn’t necessarily even result in fewer calories!  Reduced fat Jif has the same number of calories as regular; Reduced Fat Skippy has 10 fewer per serving.

A 2 TBSP portion of PB2 has 45 calories, compared to  the ~200 calories found in a comparable portion of regular peanut butter.  For 150 fewer calories per serving than conventional peanut butter, PB2 is a very viable food option for even my clients trying to lose weight.  The company also makes a CHOCOLATE version (I guess because regular peanut butter isn’t addictive enough?), which thankfully has the same number of calories per serving and a still-very reasonable 3g of sugar.

PB2′s powdered form lends itself beautifully for inclusion in smoothies or in cooked recipes (pancakes come to mind), though if you’re partial to a traditional PB&J, you can either reconstitute the powder into a spread by mixing 2 TBSPs PB2 with 1 TBSP water, or just mixing the powder directly with jelly.  If you like peanut butter on apple or banana as a snack, you could even toss sliced fruit into a ziploc with up to 4 TBSP of PB2 and still come out of it without exceeding 150 calories– a very portable snack at a very appropriate calorie level indeed!  If you’re trying to squeeze the sugar out of your diet but just can’t get used to plain yogurt instead of fruit flavored ones, try adding PB2 and some mashed banana to a plain yogurt and seeing if THAT doesn’t make the transition easier. The company’s website is loaded with recipes– though be warned, some of the reported calorie levels appear dubious to me.  Use your judgment.

And: if you’ve invented any brilliant applications for PB2 in your repertoire, leave a comment and share the inspiration!

Related posts:

1. I’ll have a peanut butter energy bar; hold the salmonella.

Passover, 2009: I did a Minted Quinoa Salad with Pine Nuts and my now-famous gluten-free Quatzoh Balls, made with Quinoa Flakes.

Thanksgiving, 2010: Black Quinoa Stuffed Acorn Squash

And before I could even start poring over my cookbooks for a dazzling Quinoa dish for this year’s Spring holiday season, a fabulous warm quinoa salad fell into my lap.  (Literally; my voracious 15 month old daughter was sitting in my lap as I was feeding it to her.  It got everywhere.)  The recipe originates in Montclair, NJ, where our friends Natalie, Andrew and Heather tossed together a random assortment of chopped leftover rosemary-roasted vegetables, a pot of warm quinoa, some goat cheese crumbles, pieces of fresh avocado, and pieces of chopped nuts (cashews?) resulting in this totally flavorful and satisfying dish whose varied colors and textures kept me digging back in for more.  I call it Copycat Warm Quinoa Salad because, of course, I am totally knocking it off.

If memory serves, the original version featured roasted beets, small Brussels sprout halves and mushrooms in addition to the fresh avocado.  Depending on what you have on hand, you could also include roasted zucchini or summer squash, butternut squash, carrots, asparagus or bell peppers.  Honestly, it’s hard to imagine a vegetable that *wouldn’t* work well in this salad.  Methinks the dish could be made into a more substantial, vegetarian main event by adding 1/2 cup to 1 cup of baby lima beans, edamame or garbanzo beans.  If you could get your hands on some fresh fava beans, it would be over the top amazing.  The goat cheese, while it adds stupendous flavor and texture to the dish, is optional if you would prefer to make this recipe dairy-free or vegan.  Look for Redwood Hill Farm’s award-winning fresh goat cheese or raw goat’s milk feta if it’s available near you– it’s made by 400 of the nicest goats I know, with help from the Bice family.  (Disclosure: I am a paid consultant for the company.  Which is how I know how nice their goats are and how delicious the cheese!)

Due to the numerous components of this dish, you may want to consider making it in phases, as I did.  I roasted my veggies one evening after the kids went to bed, and then the next evening I made the quinoa, toasted the nuts and assembled the salad.

Recipe: Copycat Warm Quinoa Salad

Serves 6 people as a side dish or 4 people as a main dish

•  6 cups raw assorted vegetables, cut into pieces of approximately equal size–about 1″ works well OR about 2 cups assorted leftover roasted vegetables, chopped into bite-sized pieces of ~1/2 “
• Pick your favorites from among: beets, small Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, zucchini, asparagus, butternut squash, colored bell peppers, carrots or anything else roastworthy that suits your fancy.  I used zucchini, mushrooms, beets, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.
  
• Olive oil
• If roasting your own veggies: 1 TBSP fresh rosemary, finely chopped OR 1 TBSP dried thyme
• 1 cup quinoa, well-rinsed
• 3oz fresh goat cheese, firm goat cheese, goat cheese crumbles or feta cheese (optional).  If using soft goat cheese, store in fridge until just before ready to assemble salad to make cutting it easier.
• 1/2 ripe avocado
• 1/2 cup nuts of your choice– cashews, blanched almond slivers or slices, pine nuts, pistachios…
• 3/4 cup frozen baby lima beans or edamame, cooked according to package instructions OR 3/4 cup canned garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (OPTIONAL)
• Kosher salt

Directions:

1. Roast your vegetables.  If you have a favorite method of doing so, be my guest.  If you want some guidance, here’s how I do it: Toss equally-sized pieces of veggies in a bowl, drizzle with enough olive oil to kiss them all without drenching (a few TBSPs generally does the trick), and sprinkle with kosher salt and the rosemary or thyme.  Place the veggies spaced apart on a foil-lined cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until soft and caramelized.  If you are using different types of veggies, you may want to roast them in separate batches, grouping together veggies of a similar texture (e.g., soft veggies like zucchini and mushrooms together, firmer veggies like cauliflower and Brussels together, etc..)   If you are using red beets, consider tossing them in oil separately than the others so that they don’t stain everything magenta.  6 cups of veggies should shrivel down to about 2 cups when all is said and done.
2. While veggies are roasting, cook your quinoa in lightly salted water according to package instructions.  (Generally, 1.5 cups water to 1 cup quinoa.)
3. Toast your nuts.  My favorite way to do this is to put raw nuts (I used blanched almond slices) in a non-stick pan over medium heat with no oil or fat.  Stir constantly until nuts start to brown.  Turn off heat and continue stirring for another minute or so so they continue to brown.  Remove from heat immediately as they are more consistently brown and toasty smelling to avoid burning them.
4. Chop roasted vegetables into bite-sized pieces (about 1/2″).
5. Remove goat cheese or feta from fridge.  Cut into small cubes/pieces.  (Not necessary if you’re using pre-crumbled cheese, of course)
6. Cut avocado into small cubes
7. To assemble the salad: Combine warm quinoa in a large serving bowl with roasted veggies, toasted nuts and beans, if including them.  Toss well.  Sprinkle cheese and avocado crumbles over the salad and toss again, breaking up large clumps of cheese/quinoa into smaller pieces if needed.
8. Season with additional kosher salt to taste if needed.  If you have a fancy olive oil, you could also drizzle it over the finished product as well.
9. Serve!

or 4 people as

Related posts:

1. Turkey-Quinoa Burgers
2. Jumping on the Quinoa bandwagon

I must have missed the local-ish New England crop last fall somehow.  Perhaps my attention was diverted by alluring acorn squashes or butternuts.  But I had been meaning to make–and blog about– spaghetti squash “noodles”: the soft, stringy tangle of spaghetti-like strands that you rake out of a baked spaghetti squash using a fork. I had all but given up hope of encountering this  yellow, oblong curcubit again for months, until all of a sudden, a bumper crop of Mexican-born spaghetti squashes appeared en masse everywhere I shop.  Committed as I am to buying local and in-season as often as possible, I’ll admit I couldn’t resist the opportunity to snag one.

Seasoned with some butter and herbs, maybe a touch of Parmesan cheese, spaghetti squash is delicious as a side dish in its own right.  But even more interesting to me is its utility as a “pasta extender” for my clients trying to lose weight.

As many of my clients will tell you, when it comes to weight loss, I really harp on watching carbohydrate portions–particularly at dinnertime.  Which is precisely when my clients, after a long and tiring day at work, love to snuggle up with soft, cozy, big ol’ bowl of pasta.  Depending on just how big ol’ your pasta bowl actually is, the noodles alone in a pasta-centric entree– before you add even a drizzle of sauce, a nibble of protein or a sprinkle of cheese– will likely run you *at least* 400-500 calories.  (This is about the time in our consultation when I break out my rubber food models and show what a 1 cup, 240-calorie  portion of pasta looks like, and you tell me that you eat at least twice that.)  And while I don’t ask my clients to count calories, I’m definitely doing the math in my head behind the scenes, and generally trying to cap the total meal calories at that level.

Since hunger is the enemy of weight loss, and feelings of deprivation can often trigger a binge, I am always looking for ways to shave calories and carbs while keeping my clients feeling full and satiated–both physiologically and psychologically.  That often means helping to keep that bowl full of food looking full and offering equally cozy textures so the pleasure of eating is not cut short before the brain registers its sense of satisfaction.

To this end, I have a small arsenal of veggie-based carb imposters that I call into service, depending on the client and their dietary restrictions.  Some of my secret weapons:

• Cauliflower: Surely you’ve already heard of creamy mashed cauliflower in lieu of mashed potatoes.  (You can swap out the buttermilk with plain yogurt, Greek yogurt or kefir.  For lactose free, use Green Valley Organics lactose-free plain kefir.  And yes, I am now a paid consultant for Green Valley Organics.  But that doesn’t change the fact that their plain kefir will rock the socks off of your mashed cauliflower.)

• Green Papaya: I also steer clients who live here in New York and dine downtown toward the Shredded “Green Papaya Noodle”-based Pad Thai at Ngam in the East Village when the craving for Asian noodles strikes.

• Spaghetti Squash: Try mixing 1 cup spaghetti squash noodles in with up to 1 cup of cooked (gluten-free) spaghetti.  Tossed together and topped with your favorite sauce, it creates an abundant bowl of noodliness that may help you control your pasta portions without feeling deprived.  And that one cup of cooked spaghetti squash adds a mere 42 calories to the pasta’s 240, as well as 2g of fiber, leaving you ample room too add a reasonable sauce, the protein of your choice and some more veggies.   It also saves you about 35g of carbohydrate–over 2 diabetic carb exchanges–for those of you counting carbs.

Or, for a fabulous, diet-friendly Mexican-inspired vegetarian entree, try this great recipe for Spicy Spaghetti Squash with Black Beans!

How to make spaghetti squash noodles

1. Cut the squash in half lengthwise
2. Scrape out seeds with a spoon
3. Place squash halves cut side down in a 9 x 13 casserole dish, add 1/2 cup water, and bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes until tender
4. When finished cooking, use a fork to scrape the flesh out of the rind, starting at the stem end and raking toward the bottom end.  Doing so will produce stringy squash “noodles”.

Related posts:

1. Redeeming Rice Noodles
2. Butternut Squash Soup: A recipe beloved by the infant cognoscenti