Monday, August 1, 2016

Eat All the Veggies!

Once again, I'm late to the party with something - this time, it's the Paderno spiralizer.  Now to be fair, I had it in my Amazon shopping cart for close to a year, but it was about $35, and I never could bring myself to click "buy" at that price - I don't cook a lot, and it felt silly to spend that much money on something that I might not use very often.  But I noticed that on Prime Day the price dropped to $20, and with that, I hit the buy button.  Apparently I have a price, and that price is $20.

I still wasn't sure about it, and unlike Debby, who also bought one using the Prime Day deal and tested it out immediately with a rutabaga she had lying around (side note:  I have never had a rutabaga lying around, LOL), I let my spiralizer sit on the kitchen counter for nearly a week.

Finally, after two trips to the grocery store (I forgot avocados and tomatoes the first go-round), I took the spiralizer out of the box, assembled the handle, and gave it a whirl with a zucchini.  YOU. GUYS.  This thing worked.  And it was fascinating!  Look at this:
One normal-sized zucchini - the base of my cold veggie dish.

I spiralized two zucchini in total, one for Jeff and one for me...it took great restraint to not spiralize all the things, because it was really fun to use.  Instead, I took out my egg slicer to use on mushrooms, because at this point I still wanted to play with my food:

I finally had to resort to using a lowly knife for the rest of the ingredients.  Behold, my beautiful veggie salad:
Zucchini noodles (zoodles), tiny colorful tomatoes, mushrooms, avocado, herbed feta cheese, and diced chicken breast.

I put a little bit of this salad dressing on it and tossed everything together:
For store-bought, this dressing is really good!

I added some salt and pepper, and ended up cutting the zoodles with my knife because they were as long as spaghetti.  The meal was tasty, healthy, and super filling...I had a hard time finishing it.  Until I bought the spiralizer and looked at some recipe ideas for it, I didn't know that you could eat the zucchini noodles raw - I thought they needed to be heated up.  Nope - it was delicious like this, and I love how many veggies we were able to eat in one meal.

While I'll use this to make noodles with spaghetti sauce, and also I'm interested in spiralizing a sweet potato, tossing it with coconut oil, and baking some nifty curly fries, that won't be happening until it cools down around here.  However, I did use the zoodles with some store-bought pesto and dang, that was really good.

For those of you who have a spiralizer, what else do you do with it?  Anything I'm missing out on making?  And if you don't own one, I'm telling you - don't be like me and wait forever to make that purchase.  It's easy to use, easy to clean, and I'm really amazed at how much I like the veggie creations that come from it!

18 comments:

  1. I use it with potatoes to make Thomas latkes. We make zucchini noodles in place of pasta for all types of dishes. Also like to do a mix of veggies for a salad - zucchini, carrot, squash, radish...anything hard-ish.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You spiralize radishes? Interesting! I'll add that one to the list. And the latkes sound really good, too.

      Delete
  2. I recently bought a spiralizer so you are not the only one late to the party :) So far I have only used it with zucchini but have to try other things. I might find some tips here later on.

    Your salad looks super delicious!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We can be spiralizer newbies together! Although, considering how much you cook, I'm sure you'll quickly surpass me...that's OK, just share your ideas. :)

      Delete
  3. I have been on the fence post for awhile myself. Knowing now that I can eat the zucchini uncooked might just give me that push I need. I have cut out pasta from my diet and this looks like a quick and easy solution.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We've really liked the uncooked zucchini, which surprised me. I'm actually wondering if you have to cook it at all - would topping it with hot pasta sauce be enough? Hmmm.

      Delete
    2. I cooked it for dinner but I have seen recipes where zucchini is eaten raw. It's all about how you like it the most.

      Delete
  4. I love the spiralizer. It's great for fruit, too! Apple slices or even apple noodles are really fun.

    I love sweet potato noodles, too.

    With zukes, I found if I want them warm, just pop them in the microwave for a minute or so. They are hot, but not soggy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was wondering how long it would take to get them warm, thanks!

      Delete
  5. I have found that I do not like to "substitute" spaghetti with any kind of vegetable noodle so typical pasta sauces do not work for me. It's almost as if I'm disappointed that it's not real spaghetti.

    However, as much as I dislike spaghetti squash (I find it so watery), I love some zoodles. My favorite thing to top zoodles with is paleOMG's sun dried tomato pesto. I usually pop them in the microwave for 1 minute then put that on top and it's such a delicious lunch and a nice change from my regular lunch salad.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not a spaghetti squash fan, either. The sundried tomato pesto sounds really yummy - make me some? LOL.

      Delete
  6. LOLOL. Geez, I'm with you, a rutabaga lying around? I haven't pulled the trigger on a spiralizer yet either. I have other kitchen gadgets that haven't worked for me so I'm hesitant. I'll keep watching how you guys use it and maybe change my mind. I could use some more summer meals that don't require lettuce.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dang it!!! Now I want a spiralizer!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think I would saute the zucchini, not sure I could eat it raw - but your dish looks so tasty!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Check out http://inspiralized.com/and her cookbook if you haven't already. So many great ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  10. The spiralizer is fun! I got one a couple of months ago. I started out spiralizing every second day or so, and trying out all kinds of veggies....but, the novelty wore off and my spiralizing has slowed down significantly. Note to self: Get back on the spiralizing train...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Will have to purchase that and try it while cooking veggies! Thanks for the reco!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are now moderated to prevent spammers from leaving, well, spam - but rest assured that as soon as I read a real comment, I will publish it. So please, comment away, even though the blog is officially closed. Thanks!