I get a lot of cooking magazines every month and I read them like novels. Bon Appetite. Vegetarian Times. Cook’s Country. Weight Watchers. Woman’s World. Taste of Home.

“Oh, that looks good,” I gush, and mark the page or tear it out, intending to make the dish. But I never do. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a very large pile. And when I go through it, I still think I want to make all those recipes. Some are challenging. Some sound strange. Some use unusual ingredients in new ways. Some transform vegetables into something else!

Their common denominator is that all of them are healthy—low fat, low to moderate carbs, little if any sugar—but full of flavor. I’ve been dieting my whole life and am at a stage where I’m closing in on getting where I want to be. But I don’t consider myself on a diet. I consider myself on a new lifetime eating program that knows how to have luscious, delicious food without packing on the pounds.

I know from experience that there’s lots of ways to eat about anything you want—but you don’t have to eat the old-fashioned full-fat version. Not if you’re clever, and read a lot of cooking magazines!

So my resolution for 2015 is to take care of two birds with one stone.

This year, I’m actually going to make those magazine recipes that look so good! And I’m going to lose the rest of the weight I started taking off in earnest two years ago (thanks to Weight Watchers.)

Every week, I’ve vowed to make at least one brand new recipe from my “wanna cook” pile. And each month, I’ll share the one I loved best–the coca-doodle-do recipe of the month!

For January, I’ve put together an entire meal that I’ve named:

SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS WITHOUT SPAGHETTI OR MEAT

I subscribe to Vegetarian Times, not because I’m a vegetarian, but because they really do have imaginative recipes that are plant and grain based. I’ve also learned tons of useful information from them. I’m still not sold on tofu, so I skip those recipes, but oh my, what they can do with broccoli. And that’s where I found their recipe for:

BROCCOLI MEATBALLS
4 cups broccoli florets (1 large head)
1 cup raw almonds
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced (I upped this to 4 cloves because I love garlic.)
1/8 tsp. Cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp. Salt (I added this.)
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
Steam broccoli florets 10 minutes, until tender and bright green. Cool.
Pulse almonds in food processor until finely ground. Put in large mixing bowl.
Pulse steamed broccoli in food processor until chopped. Add to almonds.
Add Parmesan, basil, parsley, garlic and pepper and salt.
Whisk eggs in a small bowl and stir into broccoli mixture.
Shape mixture into 12-16 meatballs by hand, pressing firmly to ensure they hold their shape. Place on prepared baking sheet and bake 25 minutes or until golden brown.

For the rest of the dish:
I don’t eat a lot of pasta, to cut down on carbs, so my spaghetti is spaghetti squash (a trick I learned in Weight Watchers years ago.) I roast this while I’m making the broccoli meatballs:

Cut the squash in half and take out the seeds.
Put it cut side down on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray and roast in 400 degree over about 20 minutes or until you can easily pierce the skin.
“Rake” out the flesh with a fork and it comes out like strands of “pasta.”

For my sauce, I buy Marinara sauce in a jar and gussy it up—I add onions, garlic, Worcestershire Sauce, Vermouth—you can do whatever flavors you most like, although the sauce right from the jar is usually pretty good. The secret is not to heat it in a pot, but in a large saucepan so there’s plenty of hot surface for the tomato sauce to start carmelizing–it will get deeper red as this happens. That ups the flavor a lot. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20-30 minutes.

I put a mound of spaghetti squash on a plate, add lots of tomato sauce and 2-3 broccoli meatballs. I make up a second plate for a next day leftover, and freeze the rest of the meatballs.

And that’s how this Uppity Woman gets to have Spaghetti and Meatballs without Spaghetti or Meat!