Chicken and Chard Spaghetti Squash Bowl

What? A cooking blog? I haven't done one of these in a long time, but I made a spaghetti squash bowl tonight that the whole family enjoyed. Even P-Rex ate some! Shoot, even Hubskie liked it, and he is not a squash fan.

Lately, I've had Zilla help me with preparing dinner and it has really helped with getting him to eat better. Pro tip...I try to get him involved in preparing the vegetables so he is more inclined to eat them. P-Rex is enjoying preparing his own dishes. We still need to work on his hygiene and mise en place before he gets to help with the real deal  (note pretend food tossed on the floor. When he was cutting his tomato, he decided he needed more room so he just tossed the other food on the floor).

I originally sat down to write this recipe for myself, but then decided to go ahead and put it on the blog in case others would like to try it out. I think it could be turned into a casserole, if you were preparing for more people, by increasing the amount of each ingredient and then broiling in a casserole dish rather than the squash bowls. 

The ingredients below were just the right amount for me, hubskie, and the two boys. 

Chicken and Chard Spaghetti Squash Bowls

Ingredients:

5-6 boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed cut into bite sized pieces

1 bunch swiss or rainbow chard

1 white onion, diced

1 spaghetti squash

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup (or however much you want) shredded Parmesan cheese

1 stick mozzarella string cheese, tear into strings 

olive oil
Lemon juice and/or lemon zest

salt

pepper 

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut squash in half and clean out seeds. Brush olive oil on cut sides and season with salt and pepper. Place on baking sheet cut/flesh side down. Bake for 45-50 minutes

2) While squash is baking, heat 2 tsp olive oil in large skillet over medium high heat. Add cut chicken thighs. Season with salt and pepper. Cook through

3) De-stem chard and discard stems (or freeze for later use). Tear chard into bite size pieces. Zilla helped with this part and was so proud of himself! He ate every bite of his chard tonight.

3) Once chicken is cooked, add onion. Cook until onion begins to soften, add garlic. Season with salt and pepper

4) Add chard to skillet, add 1/4 cup water and a teaspoon of olive oil. Stir occasionally and let chard wilt. Continue to stir for additional 3-5 minutes. season with salt and pepper (Blue apron taught me to season with salt and pepper at almost every step.) 

5) Remove squash and use forks to pull out the squash "spaghetti" strings. Add to skillet. Leave skin of squash in baking pan, skin side down to use as bowls. Stir to combine. Add lemon juice/zest to taste. I only added a few drops, maybe half a tsp. 

6) Divide mixture in half and add to squash skin bowls. Mix in Parmesan cheese. Top with strings of mozzarella cheese.

7) Place back into oven and switch oven to broil. Leave for 3-5 minutes until cheese is melted and starting to bubble

8) Enjoy!