After Dance Dinner

My eldest daughters had dance class last night and Dayton's been working 12 hour shifts since last Thursday. With 5 kids, you can imagine that going to the grocery store without backup is quite the undesirable project so looking to the pantry and freezer for dinner... need I say that pickins were slim? It's 1:30pm. I have to have everyone in the van & ready to go by 4pm and I have to prepare dinner for a family of 7 to be ready by the time we walk back in the door after dance classes at 7pm. I hadn't pre-soaked any pintos for the crock, besides I'm out of cornmeal -- just uncivilized to have beans without cornbread! That roast isn't defrosted and I'm out of onions & potatoes... Then I notice the spaghetti squash from my garden last fall; it's fell off the vine while it was still green and has spent the winter on my counter ripening tho' no longer growing so it's small as spaghetti squash go but it just may do... I pull out the good knife, slice it in half, scoop out seeds (saving enough to dry & plant this year) toss it in a pan cut-side down, pour in just enough water to roast & in the oven at 350 for an hour. Now, what else? There's a pack of turkey Italian sausage in the freezer... into the sink to thaw. There's a can of crushed tomatoes and still a few of my roasted tomatoes in the freezer from last fall (can't wait to start harvesting romas again this year so I can restock!) 1:45 -- Operation dinner is in full swing. Out of the kitchen and back to the babies while the squash roasts and the sausage thaws. 2:30pm -- I couldn't get back to the kitchen 'til now but it's hard to over-roast squash (just make sure it has enough water) so it's all good. I take it out of the oven and set it aside to cool while I start cutting the still semi-frozen Italian sausage into inch size pieces to brown (semi-frozen so it's soft enough to cut thru' but doesn't crumble when piercing the skin.) Toss in several peeled cloves of garlic toward the end of cooking the sausage (no mincing, just peel & toss) and back to that squash -- 10 til 3 & it's cool enough to handle now. Scrape the meat of the squash with a fork into corningware and add basic italian seasonings (red pepper, basil, oregano, etc...) Open that can of tomatoes and a couple roasted tomatoes -- toss 'em on the heap, stir it a bit so the seasonings mix & I don't have that naked clump of stringy squash on the bottom... Throw the sausage & garlic on top and toss back in the oven at 200. Upstairs to get girls ready for class and the other 3 ready for a few hours away from home... 7pm -- everyone is now hungry and begging for LongJohnSilver?! The smell of victory greets us as we open the garage and all mention of LongJohn disappears. The girls ran to the table to wait for me to dish out servings then fell on it!!! My camera's batteries were dead and the girls could not wait the hour for them to charge so no pics this time around but take my word it was a pretty dish (and filling!) I could have told them it was squash not angelhair, but who would have believed me. I LOVE spaghetti squash, I feel like such an Italian food outlaw! I am officially out of my home grown fare now tho' -- time to start planning a garden and pre-treating those food stains.