I like spaghetti squash with basil pesto, peppers and sheep gouda.

Corinna Borden | Contributor

“Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” When Hippocrates stated these words, I am sure ancient Greece had as many forms of enticement as we have today to lure people away from the path of food as medicine. Sautéed mice with honey and dates, anyone?

Hippocrates stated those words hundreds of years before the link was made between eating certain types of gluten and what is now known as celiac disease, one of the main reasons people avoid wheat. Whether your reason is celiac disease, a cleansing diet, a blood-type diet, a vegetable fast or for curiosity -- spaghetti squash is my favorite fall substitute for the proverbial easy dinner of spaghetti.

That is because after it is cooked spaghetti squash can be treated just like spaghetti. (I don’t think I am the first one to notice this considering the name.) I split mine in half, throw it into a 350 oven for 30 minutes, scrape out the innards (feeding the skin to the chickens), and end up with a beautiful mound of strands in a bowl. You can add sauce, cheese, meatballs, pesto, olive oil, garlic, egg, bacon, cream - whatever you would like.

The consistency is more vegetal than al dente. The flavor is sweet and slightly nutty. It does not quite twist around your fork, but it does work very well with chopsticks and slurping (my personal favorite).

Tantre displays the bounty of the squash season at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market.

Photo courtesy of Real Time Farms

A multitude of squash greet us this time of year at the farmers market. Squash for making pie, squash for making into soup, squash for roasting, squash for mashing. Try some squash for spaghetti!

Corinna wrote a book about many things, works with the Westside Farmers Market, and spoils her backyard chickens.