Oodles of Zoodles

Vegetables becoming noodles is a pretty big deal these days. So, naturally, I had to jump on that bandwagon.  I was intrigued when friends of ours started doing mason jar salads. My mother in law got me one of these and a recipe book from the library and told me to have at it! Well...  the book didn't have pictures, so I just had to turn to my good buddy Pinterest to see what I could scrounge up.

I made this recipe from the guru over at Damn Delicious. Of course I tweaked a few things, I didn't add the parsley leaves because we don't like them and I only added the juice from half of a lemon because i didn't want to use a whole lemon because I've also jumped on the bandwagon of the infused water.  Boy that was a long sentence..

Kind of like these long noodles!

The Veggetti was super duper easy to use.  You just pick which side you want to use based on whether you want thick or thin slices, prep the veggie and twist.  I found that it worked better with a bit of pressure, otherwise the noodles came out shorter. With pressure they were longer and well, more noodle like.

I also wondered where the seeds were going, and as it turns out they went into the opposite end of the utensil. Pretty cool.  It also left this interesting scrap, if you will.  Perhaps the makers of the Veggetti are also secretly the designers of Madonna's bras in the '80s.

I would absolutely use it again, with a few lessons in my back pocket.  First, you have to have the right size veggie to twist. So yes, in this case, size DOES matter.  I bought 3 medium sized zucchini and they worked perfectly.  I had a larger one left over from another dish and it wouldn't fit even after I cut them.   Second, cut the noodles before you cook them - I didn't think that they were "that long", but wound up cutting them after I put them in the pot. The instructions said to cut them, but who uses directions when you obviously know better than the people that made the utensil.

Besides, doesn't this dish look wonderful?! It was really delicious. The zoodles turned out similar to spaghetti noodles but with a bit of a crunch. This was perfect for us because we like our noodles a little al dente. We both like the taste of zucchini and you honestly couldn't taste it - it took on the flavor of the scampi broth.  Really the only hint that they weren't real noodles was their color.

So, to all of those that have been on the fence about trying one of these spiraling gadgets, I say GO FOR IT!  Now I can't wait until the garden is planted and the zucchini are plentiful!