Food Friday: Quick and Easy Zucchini Noodles and Vermicelli

One of my favorite things to eat is zoodles. It is so easy to make them with the spiralizer.  They lighten up spaghetti tremendously, especially if you put in more zoodles than spaghetti noodles. 

When I was looking for some good vegetables at Shaw's (since we have been home I had already shopped at Price Chopper, Hannaford's, Wing's, and the Coop--I wanted one more time shopping in each place) I saw some beautiful firm YOUNG zucchinis.  I picked up four of them and resolved to make spaghetti for supper.  Slipping zoodles into a recipe like spaghetti can get some vegetables into resistant vegetable eaters!

Quick and Easy Zoodles and Vermicelli

Put a large pot of water on the stove to start boiling.

Spiralize four young zucchinis--about 6-7 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter/thick. 

Heat a cast iron frying pan and place in it 1 Tablespoon olive oil.  When hot, add the zoodles and toss to cook. 

At the same time break up a pound of vermicelli into thirds if you are feeding young children.  It is hard for them to eat long noodles...and put them into the boiling water to cook.

Continue tossing and cooking the zucchini until you are happy with it.  I actually cooked it until the vermicelli was cooked because it did not take long.

Drain the vermicelli in a colander then put back into the pot. Add the cooked zoodles and a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce.  (I said it was quick and easy...!) . Toss well and serve.

After I had eaten a tiny bowl, Son #3 told me he put some sea salt and Frank's Red Hot Sauce on his bowl. I had to try it.  I am very new to Frank's Red Hot Sauce, but may I say: it was fabulous.  I had several more tiny bowls, then had some more for breakfast today!  Yummy yummy.

The smallest grandchild insisted he could not eat zoodles.  When it was made a condition of receiving a bowl of a multi-berry sherbet for dessert he said, "Okay...", and began shoveling the spaghetti into his gullet.  And I mean shoveling!  He was done in three bites.  Because I am a mean grandma, and wanted to rub it in a little...so he would get the message that often things he thinks will be awful are not at all bad to eat, I asked him how it was.  He said, "It was kind of good."  Funny little creature.

Munchie Monday: "Poodles" and Zoodles!

Tried something new on Friday after a long week. SPOILER ALERT:  it was not totally successful!

We got home from the office late on Friday but I still wanted to make the zoodles and spaghetti sauce.  I pulled the three zucchini out of the refrigerator to spiralize.  Since I had just purchased a $99 Cuisinart Elemental 13-Cup Bowl Food Processor with Spiralizer Kit, I thought things would be great.  NOT SO.  I don't know how Cuisinart make such a piece of junk.  After multiple tries to put it together following the directions exactly, at the 8th time trying and failing to get the thing to start, I cursed silently to myself (though for some reason Dear One asked me if I was swearing....!  I wasn't but I was thinking mean thought...)  and put that piece of junk equipment back on the table by its box and hauled out my manual spiralizer.

This led to the next issue with supper.  The first zucchini spiralized beautifully.  The second one was okay.  The third one, which was less firm, would not spiralize at all. It just sort of ground off the end.  Rats! So maddening and my blood sugar was dropping like a stone.

Since I really did not think that was enough noodles for our supper,  I took two small russet potatoes and spiralized them, which worked beautifully.

On to the last trial with supper:  I put the zoodles and "poodles" in the saucepan to cook before adding the spaghetti sauce.  After about 5 minutes of cooking which is way more than necessary for the zoodles, and since the poodles were the same size, I thought I would speed up the cooking by tossing in the spaghetti sauce, a little garlic, and some Italian seasoning, and brought it up to a boil.  I let the mess boil for about 5 minutes, then threw in some grated Parmesan cheese, stirred well and was ready to serve it.

In the meantime Dear One, who was also starving (though a bag a "scary corn chips" had sort of blunted his hunger a bit) had wandered through the kitchen.  He looked in the pot and said, "It looks iffy."  Just what I wanted to hear.  Being a little bit snippy-feeling, I told him it was good and he would like it.  And it was what was for supper.

After dropping his bowl off to him where he was sitting on the couch researching something on the tablet, I started eating my bowl. It tasted good.  The only problem was that the poodles were not thoroughly cooked, i.e. not cooked to bits.  I had forgotten that when you have an acidic sauce the other food needs to be completely cooked because the acid stops the cooking.  Or something like that.  I had not problem eating it, however.    Dear One, on the other hand, ate a reasonable amount then told me it was not as bad as he had thought!  Well, at least he ate some, and there was plenty of other food in the house if he was really hungry.

On Saturday I returned the Cuisinart machine to Costco where I had purchased it.

Munchie Monday: Spiralizing Again! Quick and Easy Zoodles with Sauce

Brieftons 7-blade Spiralizer, bad picture

It is late spring.  There are wonderful zucchinis in the markets.  I have been hankering for some zoodles with sauce.  Recently I saw an advertisement for a bunch of spiralizers.  I found a spiralizer by Brieftons with seven blades!  That sounded exciting.  So I went to Amazon and found it.  And bought it. (No, I don't get a kickback if you buy it.) .  It was here two days later.

The first thing I made was zoodles!  The second thing was potatoes spiralized and fried in deep fat, well, shallow fat, really, for Dear One.  I had just made potato chips in the microwave and did not feel the need to eat delicious fatty salty potato strips.  Well, only a few...

My recipe was simple:

Spiralize 1 small sweet onion.  Put it in a saucepan with one-half cup water and turn on the heat to medium.

Spiralize 2 small (6-inch, skinny) zucchinis and stir them into the onions.  Stir and cook until the onion is cooked, perhaps five minutes.

Add 1 Tablespoon hoisin sauce,  1 1/2 teaspoons Kirkland Non-salt Seasoning, and stir well.

Add a few scraps of baked chicken and stir well.  Eat it all up yourself.  Well, Dear One did not want to eat zoodles this time so I just threw in some chicken that has been aging in the refrigerator. 

Tasted darned good.