Eric and I have been quite obsessed with HGTV and DIY Network for some time now. We know all the shows. All the hosts. Bryan Baeumler fan girl/boy right here! We can recite all the annoying commercials by heart (ugh). We watch repeated episodes multiple times to the point where we could recognize the homeowners on the street. Eric is tormented by the fact that we’re renting right now and can’t really do anything major to spiff up this place. Not that it’s a bad place to live, but it doesn’t really feel overly personalized for us. It doesn’t quite feel like home. He’s so desperate to build things he didn’t complain once when putting together an Ikea cabinet the other week! How does that even happen?
The point of this story, however, is that the DIY shows are brainwashing me.
Proof? I’m entertaining Eric’s idea of gutting an old house from top to bottom. That’s on his bucket list. His dream is to buy the crappiest, oldest, creepiest house on the block and gut it to the bones. We recently went to look at a 100-year old house that hadn’t been updated since the original owner moved in. Green cabinets, knob and tube electrical, scary stains in the basement, rotary phones. It was straight out of a horror flick. Isn’t that every girl’s dream? Can I even survive that kind of torment? Who knows. Watching them make it look so easy on TV makes me feel like it’s possible though (or insane, depending on the day).
I hate to be a dream crusher, so I’m entertaining this idea. Plus, I love when he’s happy and doing what he is passionate about. I just don’t want a house gutting to be a marriage gutter, you know what I mean? I recall the renos we did in our previous house and it wasn’t always puppy dogs and rainbows. There were tears, fights, hefty bills, excruciating trips to Home Depot (loathe), dust, and more dust. Did I mention dust? Maybe renting isn’t so bad after all.
I’ll keep you posted on what we end up doing. In the meantime, feel free to share your own home renovation stories with me! Are you living through any right now?
Something that isn’t a marriage crusher? This recipe right here. Smiles and happy bellies all around with this meal. As per my theme of Vegan Glow in September, this meal was super easy to throw together. In fact, I think I’m going to put it on the rotation every week! It’s also a great way to boost your vegetable intake significantly.
When the squash is done roasting, season it with chili powder, cumin, oregano, and more salt and pepper. I go wild with the spices. Then layer on a hefty serving of black bean guacamole. I repeat: go wild.
aaaaand feast!
Tex Mex Spaghetti Squash with Black Bean Guacamole
Yield
2-3 servings
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
A satisfying and healthy dinner for two! Recipe inspired by Whole Foods.
Ingredients
For the spaghetti squash:
- 1 medium spaghetti squash
- extra virgin olive oil
- ground cumin
- ground chili powder
- dried oregano
- salt & pepper
For the black bean guacamole:
- 2 avocados, pitted and flesh scooped out
- 1/2 cup diced red onion
- 1 small tomato, seeded and diced
- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed (about 1.5 cups cooked beans)
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or to taste
- fine grain sea salt, to taste
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- red pepper flakes, to taste
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice off the stem of the squash and place the squash cut side down on a cutting board. With a chef's knife, carefully slice through the squash lengthwise to create two long halves. Scoop out the seeds and guts with an ice cream scoop. Brush some olive oil onto the squash and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place squash halves cut side down on the baking sheet and roast for 30-50 minutes, depending on how large your squash is. When the squash is tender and you can easily scrape the strands with a fork, it's ready. I like to check the squash after 25-30 minutes to make sure I'm not over cooking it. Be sure not to cook for too long or it will turn mushy.
- While the squash is roasting, prepare the black bean guacamole. Mash the avocado flesh in a large bowl. Fold in the onion, tomato, drained and rinsed black beans, and cilantro. Season to taste with lime juice, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.
- Remove squash from the oven, flip over, and scrape the flesh with a fork in vertical motions. Do this until you've scraped all the strands off the skin. Now sprinkle on some chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt, and pepper (as much or as little as you want). Top the squash with guacamole and serve warm. You can also plate the spaghetti squash, if preferred.
Tip:
For a step by step photo tutorial for roasting spaghetti squash, see this post.
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)
I’m always amazed at the combinations people put together. We have both those dishes in our household but have never put them together. Its the simple things that do it.
Wow, this looks delicious. I love beans, avocado, and squash in pretty much equal measure!
I love TexMex! I’ve never cooked my own spaghetti squash, I’m excited to try!
OMG love the idea of texmex squash!!! Never would have thought to do this myself… definitely happening in my kitchen, like, tonight!
I, too, am addicted to HGTV shows, but have no desire to renovate. But, I would love to build new, again. This time under 1,000 sq. feet. Modern. Longing to downsize and de-clutter.
I am spiralizing zucchini these days (as they are so prolific in the garden) so will substitute it for spaghetti squash. Sounds like a great alternative to the salads I’ve been enjoying. Thanks for the inspiration!
BTW – Joyce Chen spiralizer. LOVE it!
Eric’s dream and mine are the same! Sadly, my hubby to be is totally a dream crusher on that one :( One day maybe I’ll manage to convince him!
Gonna try the recipe, typically not a fan of spaghetti squash, but always willing to try again!
The idea of buying an old house and gutting it is kind of scary, but if it works out, I think it would be worth it. Old houses are so beautiful!
Also this recipe looks awesome. I was just thinking about different ways to use spaghetti squash (since I almost always eat it with some kind of tomato sauce, and that’s getting old), so this recipe came at the perfect time!
This looks delist! Can’t wait to try it!
This looks super yummy! I also have an HGTV obsession. Ahh, real estate porn!
Has anyone mentioned the classic Tom Hanks comedy The Money Pit? You should see it before taking on a tumble-down palace!
Exactly what I was wondering. Wonderful movie from the late 80s/ early 90s. Maybe live vicariously through them.
Angela,
I love your recipes. Lately, I enjoy the peeks into what else is going on in your life. This makes me feel more connected in the blog world-a good thing!
New to your blog and love it. Waiting, rather impatiently, for the cookbook to come out in Spring.
Thank you, I’m happy to hear that! :)
All my favorites in one recipe… I die! Thanks for making my day :-)
Hi, Angela! I have recently stumbled upon your website, and am I glad I did. What a wealth of information here. Your ideas are so accessible, fun and beautifully presented, and your love of real food and good health truly radiates out to the rest of us lucky folks. This year marks a huge dietary transition for me, as I divest myself of GMO food, factory farmed meats and a 4-1/2 year addiction to acid blockers. Many thanks for helping make that journey an inspired one.
As for “old house reno” projects, I had to laugh when you wrote about that — I live in a house built in 1799, and when I bought it in 2009, it was barely habitable. It had NOT been kept up well in recent decades, and worse, it smelled horrible. The very first project that came up, after a few weeks of scrubbing, was when I took my first bath in the beautiful clawfoot bathtub, drained the water… and heard an odd splashy sound in the basement. Turned out there was a partial blockage just before the septic tank (a plastic bag of disposable razors, no less — who flushes bags of razors??) which had caused the large volume of bathwater to back up into a disabled section of the waste pipe that had burst many years ago (unbeknownst to us, as the broken part faced the wall). We had to dig a largish ditch in the front yard and replace the outside pipe. I learned how to mix and apply cement, and how to test the viability of a septic tank — two of numerous new skill sets I now boast.
Maybe it’s just the rescuer in me, but I feel my house is like a living “person” that I was meant to own and fix up. You already know that passion is what drives us to our right destinies. You’ll know when the right house speaks to you! Please do keep us updated on those adventures.
This looks incredibly, now I just have to convince my non-avocado loving husband to try it!
As for the renovation project, it sounds like a epic and scary amount of work. That being said, it’s always something I have dreamed of. If you do it, I hope you post every step of the way on here. It would be wonderful to follow along.
P.S. The new recipe printer app is working great, but I really wish there was a picture included with it. It’s nice to see what it is I’m looking at making without having to read all the ingredients. Just a suggestion!
I gutted my master bathroom all by myself and remodeling it little by little. We entering month 5. Thankfully, we have another bathroom that we can use. Hope to have it done by Christmas. Not something I’d like to do again. Can’t imagine doing an entire house.
Love this idea. Thanks so much and I’m so excited that its finally squash and root veggie season!
UGGHHHH to home renos. I’m currently waiting at home for a couch to come from the Brick – between 10 am and 1 pm they say – which will be the second last touch on our basement apartment that we’ve been building for THREE MONTHS. List of things I have learned:
1. Home Depot is a energy sucker (as previously mentioned)
2. There will NEVER be enough storage space for everything
3. I hate holding things up for excruciating lengths of time – I’m always holding the level while the man of the house does the nailing, screws, etc.
4. Your reno budget? Yeah, try tripling it.
5. Picnic dinners on the floor are now a common thing.
On the bright side, all we need is a sink and renos will be done! Now to find a place to put all of the paint, equipment, caulking tubes, etc….
Thank you so much for having this site! My bf was recently forced to change his entire diet and we are both lost to find good tasting food that we can make that are GF and Dairy Free. I am so excited to try this out tonight – he loves guac!!! I will be following you :) btw – Thanks to The Berry to showing me!!!
My husband and I own our house, and we’ve limited ourselves to one “major” home renovation a year. We bought it as a “pretty-good-shape house” from the 70s six years ago, so we do smaller stuff as needed (like replacing the locks), but we’re going to own the house a long time, and any project that takes more than an afternoon has to wait its turn. This year’s project was replacing the smaller windows in the house. Next year we’re doing the big windows. We split them up because our house has weird windows that all have to be special ordered because they’re in a size no on seems to have used anywhere else in the space/time continuum other than my neighborhood.
It’s slower, but it means we’re only doing the stressful “home improvement” trips (and the fighting) for a couple weeks a year. We’re going to be living here a long time, so we’d rather go slow, take our time, and have time to have fun with each other in our first home (and some pocket money) than rushing to get a HGTV level home. We’ll get there, it’ll just take us a couple of years. :D