This season's very special dinner experiment

In this time of brisk late-fall winds and precipitation that may decide to be snow or rain or a little of both, the chilly journey home from work can be forgotten over a plate of hot food.

Tonight I played around with using spaghetti squash like pasta to hold a sauce. That sauce was today's special experiment, a low-fat, "just had to sneak in another vegetable" sausage gravy. The side dish was seasoned oven-roasted potato wedges.

To prepare spaghetti squash (I had a pretty small one), I put the whole, uncut squash in a baking pan in a 400 degree (Fahrenheit) oven and baked it for a little under an hour. While the squash was baking, I prepared the rest of the meal. For a larger squash, it may be better to cut it in half before roasting. I removed the seeds when the squash was done and scooped out stringy squash onto plates, topping it with...

Sausage Gravy with Just One More Vegetable
4 servings

2 Tbsp butter or margarine
4 or 5 celery stalks, chopped (other vegetables could be substituted, like carrots or turnip bits or chopped fennel)
one pound hot and spicy Italian turkey sausage (not the kind in casings, but bulk sausage)
2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
2 Tbsp flour
1 to 2 cups milk (I used unsweetened soy milk)
fresh ground black pepper to taste

Heat butter/margarine in a large nonstick skillet, add vegetable and cook until nearly tender. Add garlic and sausage, breaking sausage into small bits as it cooks. When sausage is cooked through, sprinkle with flour and stir over the heat a few minutes. The flour will coat the sausage and vegetable. Add milk in small amounts, stirring, until it simmers and thickens to the desired consistency. Use more milk for thinner gravy. Add pepper to taste.