The challenge: To cook and blog about all 115 recipes from the 1st Thug Kitchen cookbook Eat Like You Give a Fuck, within a year. Did I accomplish my goal? You bet I did. Did I learn shit along the way? And did I fall even deeper in love with Thug Kitchen grub? Yes and hell yes.

So now I’ve got a taste for this cooking and blogging thing and have moved onto the other Thug Kitchen books. Today it’s book 3-Fast as Fuck.

Pesto Spaghetti Squash

Okay, so I’ve never had spaghetti squash before in my life. Don’t even know what a friggin’ spaghetti squash looks like. When I saw them advertise it at a local store I got excited because it was super cheap and in the Thug Kitchen Fast as Fuck cookbook. Who doesn’t like to try new things right?

So I got home thinking this should all be straight forward, just shove the squash in the oven, blend the shit out of some herbs and shit to make a dope pesto and combine the two to make a kick ass dish. Done.

Right?

Nope, wrong. Wrong as a shit sandwich.

At the store it’d said on a sign that you could just roast it in the oven for 40-50 minutes, pull out the stringy bits and drizzle some lemon, salt and pepper over it. So when I got home I preheated my oven, shoved the squash on a baking tray and popped it in. Easy. Any asshole can do this, I thought.

I poured myself a  slow, casual drink while I turned to page 11 and read the actual recipe. Shit sandwich. I nearly spat out my drink. I was meant to have sliced the squash in half first. How long had that bad boy been in the oven already? Thug only knows.

I quickly yanked the squash back out again, threw the mofo on a chopping board and grabbed a knife. I went through 6 different knives. Slicing this thing in half was an epic near-impossible feat.

First I tried my favourite knife, then a bigger knife, then a fucking meat cleaver (or pineapple cleaver as we like to call it in my household.) I moved on to a smaller knife and even tried some crazy hack-saw action using a cerated bread knife. Honest to Thug, I was sweating. Fast as fuck? Not so much.

After much swearing and outrage I had made a small gap that I managed to get my angry hands into, and tried to pry the bastard apart with my fingers. Was it not ripe? Was the squash I picked just a withholding asshole? Did I need some magical knife or special password to coax the bastard open? Fuck only knows. I tell you now, one thing is certain. That motherfucking squash bastard was playing mind games with me. Manipulative mindgames. My frustration started turning into frantic hysteria as I laughed at how late dinner would be. I switched off the oven, thinking there’s no need for that fucker to be wasting electricity. I’m ashamed to say that I actually shouted at the squash. This was the first time, but probably not the last time that I would shout at a vegetable.

Finally, after thinking I’d need to gnaw my way in, I managed to rip the bastard open. I shrieked and did a motherfucking victory dance right there in my kitchen. I felt like I had just scalped a traitor. I wanted to set something on fire and beat my chest like a wild woman. My kid gave me a dirty look like I had lost my marbles for sure.

After that everything was much MUCH easier. The relief in the kitchen was palpable. Once the halved motherfucker was in the oven, and I had mocked its docile defeated corpse, I was able to make the pesto quickly and easily. I was calm again. I had another drink, and that helped too. (Don’t you dare judge me. I needed something to calm my nerves after that shit.)

Doesn’t look pretty does it? Not so much halved as randomly slashed into two pieces. Whatevs.

The pesto smelled amazing. I love cilantro (coriander) pesto. The Thugs got me hooked on that shit ages ago when they released their Black Bean and Cilantro Pesto Wrap. One of my faves. But something went wrong this time. I miscounted the number of cups of almonds to throw in. I think I added an extra cup of almonds accidentally. I didn’t realise at the time but later I could taste the difference. So learn from my experience. COUNT CLEARLY MOTHERFUCKERS. Otherwise you end up with pesto that tastes sort of marzipany. I think it went down that way because I was distracted by hunger, so I’m gonna cut myself some slack. And fortunately I know how healthy almonds are, and I like marzipan, so it all worked out okay. And by now, I had no more fucks left to give anyway because I was on my second Amber Waves cocktail and everything was feeling smooth around the edges.

Let’s just say my ice cubes were clinking nicely.

So one charred looking spaghetti squash later I was ready to scrape out its insides and show this devil who was really in charge. It didn’t really come out in strands like spaghetti but this was clearly the spaghetti squash from hell and I wasn’t expecting cooperation anymore. As long as Amber Waves was keeping me company I didn’t give two hoots if this meal looked how it was meant to, as long as I had some grub in my mouth soon. I wouldn’t even have been surprised if you told me at this point that I’d picked the wrong kinda squash at the store, I had no clue what I was doing.

I have to say, credit where credit is due, the spaghetti squash might have been behaving like an extravagant whore but it smelled really good and had a gorgeous vibrant yellow colour. I combined the pesto with the spaghetti squash and called my kid to the table.

By now I was nearing house-wife drunk (let’s call a spade a spade) so I tried to be creative with how I served up the spaghetti squash but looking back it probably wasn’t actually as inventive and cool looking as I thought it was at the time.

It tasted good and despite its healthy green colour my kid was willing to try it, which was a victory in itself. I called it marzipan spaghetti and his interest dial turned up even higher.

Okay, I’m no fool, there are things I’d do differently next time. Like Google what the actual fuck a spaghetti squash looks like, and find out how the fuck you know if it’s ripe. I mean do you sniff it? Knock on it to see if it sounds hollow? There must be some goddamn trick to this shit. Or does it just need a firm Taekwondo kick to split it in two?

And I’d try to keep tabs on the amount of almonds I put into the pesto. And how many cocktails I was consuming.

But practise makes perfect and there’s no way I’m letting a spaghetti squash beat me. So I’m making this again. Even if I have to buy a machete.