Oodles of Zoodles

“I don’t want to rain on your parade and I’m glad your losing weight, but meat=cholesterol and that’s not good for someone with your numbers.”

That was the response I got from my doctor when I told her I’d been losing weight with the Atkins diet, and eating mostly meat and vegetables ever since leaving I havetype 2 diabetes. I tried to win some points by pointing out that I was eating a lot more chicken and fish instead of beef, but I couldn’t argue with her counterpoint that, “meat is meat, and all meat equals cholesterol. Try and increase the veggie consumption and cut back on the meats.”

I knew there was no point arguing with someone that cheats in an argument by using “science” and “facts” to win, so I’ve resigned myself to raising to her challenge. The first hurdle I knew I had to overcome was figuring out a way to prepare vegtables beyond steaming them. I love a good portion of crunchy, fresh, steamed just right veggies with just about every meal, but usually as a side and not the main dish. Trying to make vegtable entrees a big part of my new diet plan means I’m going to have to learn a couple of things to not get bored of eating steamed broccoli for every meal. Mainly, I’m going to have to learn new vegetables to eat, and I’m going to have to learn new ways to prepare them.

My first discovery is the zoodle. What’s a zoodle? It’s a spiral sliced zucchini that looks like noodles, which is exactly the way you use them. They take the place of your spaghetti or egg noodles in your recipes to make a healthy vegetable based meal instead of using carbohydrate and gluten loaded regular pasta.

To make them you need something to spiral cut your veggies. I picked this unit up from Amazon. It does thin angel hair type spirals all the way up to a wide egg noodle like cut so I should have a good variety of options. There’s a few other options to make your zoodle.

Asian style noodle recipes seemed like a great place to start. The first recipe I tried was for a Sesame Almond Zoodle Bowl. My finished product didn’t quite look like the photo in the recipe, but it was pretty close. Since I forgot to take any pictures, I’d even say it turned out spectacularly better… as far as you know 😉

I didn’t quite have all the ingredients called for in the recipe and made the following substitutions:

• Worstechire sauce for half the amount of soy sauce
• Splenda for the erythritol
• Only a quarter of the red pepper seeds

I couldn’t tell the difference using the worstechire sauce or splensa. The pepper seeds was just a matter of taste and gave it a nice kick without being overpowering. You can always add more when you’re eating it.

The spiralizer handled two zucchini faster then it took to read the directions. You have to be careful not to overcook the zoodles, but it’s a stir-fry dish so it was easy to pay attention to their firmness.

The final result was a little odd with the first bite, don’t expect a straight up noodle taste, but every bite afterwards was satisfying and delicious. It was a perfect, meat free light meal, and could easily pair with some fish or chicken for a more robust meal.

I’ll definitely be trying this one again. With real soy sauce…. and pictures; -)