Guest Post: Tara’s Italian Summer Squash Bake

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August 22, 2014

Italian Summer Squash Bake
Hi Simply Nicole Friends!

I am so honored to be taking over today while Nicole enjoys her fabulous honeymoon. I’ve been reading Nicole’s blog for a while now, and recently I have been loving the photos of her new puppy! I’m Tara, and I blog over at the healthy living blog, Treble in the Kitchen. Treble in the Kitchen is my little corner of the web where I love sharing my latest kitchen experiments (mostly healthy, some not!), my latest workouts, and bits and pieces of my life.

I recently moved to Denver with my husband, so we are in “exploration” mode and loving everything about our new home! I absolutely love summer, and I can’t believe that it is already coming to an end. While the summer season is still here my brain is totally focused on zucchini and summer squash. I pick it up from my mom’s garden while visiting, the farmer’s market, the grocery store…you name it! I’ve got fresh summer produce on the brain.

Italian Summer Squash Bake

If you read my blog, you know I love having fun in the kitchen and trying new things, so I played around with the summer squash and created delicious noodles by using a vegetable peeler. No “fancy” tools required. Creating vegetable noodles is a delicious and fun alternative to traditional noodles that packs an additional nutrition punch when added to any dish where you would use traditional noodles. This is a great way to use up any of the last bits of summer squash you may have hanging out in the kitchen. The “filling” in my Italian Summer Squash Bake is a mixture of ricotta, parmesan, spinach, and garlic. The saltiness of the parmesan really brings out the creamy, comforting flavor of the ricotta. Yum!

Tara's Italian Summer Squash Bake
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Ingredients
  1. 2 summer squash, peeled with veggie peeler into noodles
  2. 1/4 cup onion
  3. 1 garlic clove
  4. 2 cups spinach
  5. 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
  6. 1/2 cup ricotta
  7. 1/2 cup tomato sauce
  8. 1 tsp oregano
  9. 1/4 cup Parmesan
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400.
  2. Peel your squash into veggie “noodles” & set aside.
  3. In a large skillet, sautee the onion, garlic & olive oil for 4 minutes or until the garlic & onion become translucent.
  4. Add in the spinach and cook until wilted. Remove from heat.
  5. Add the ricotta to the spinach and onion mixture.
  6. Grease an 8×8 inch baking dish, and place a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom.
  7. Layer with “noodles” and top with the ricotta mixture.
  8. Sprinkle a bit of parmesan.
  9. Repeat the layers (sauce, noodles, ricotta, parmesan) until all ingredients have been used.
  10. Top with oregano and any leftover parmesan.
  11. Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes, or until the bake is golden and bubbling.
  12. Enjoy!
Nicole Raudonis https://nicoleraudonis.com/
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