Going Spiral

Green vegetable noodles you say? Unprocessed, low carb and a healthy version of pasta? Can this really be true?! Well of course it can - thanks to the Spirlaliser - a plastic/bladed kitchen product that turns almost any vegetable into 'noodles'.  I was given a  Spiraliser for my birthday last year and it has really taken my cooking to another level. It's a fun, exciting tool that makes oodles of healthy goodness in minutes, and even the pasta-loving other half enjoys it!

I use the Spiralz Vegetable Sprialiser from Amazon, it's the number one seller for Spiralisers on the site. Like most Spiralisers, this one comes with three different blades; blade 1 being the smallest of blades (picture a.) which produces a spaghetti-like noodle, blade 2. (picture b.) produces medium sized spaghetti noodles and blade 3 (picture c.) creates a thin tagliatelle-like noodle. All blades and vegetables have great potential to make a variety of dishes so the options are never ending.

a.  blade 1

b. blade 2

c. blade 3

Spiralisers and spiralised dishes have seemed to become really popular in the past couple of years with more upcoming chefs and recipe writers encouraging us to eat better by nourishing our bodies with less processed foods.  Some more recent writers and inspiring cooks that I would recommend and who have inspired my cooking are Delicisouly Ella (her first book is released on 22nd January 2015, get it here on Amazon) and the Hemsley Sisters (The Art of Eating Well, 2014) These girls are creative foodies who construct nourishing and replenishing dishes which appeal to everyone.

And so, to spiralise! You can spiralise most vegetables such as the carrot, potato, sweet potato, beetroot and even cabbage. However the easiest and most versatile vegetable to spiralise is the courgette, also known as a zuchinni to those of you in the Southern Hemisphere. The courgette is placed in the centre of the Spiraliser and turned to create what is more commonly known as 'courgetti' or 'zoodles'. Courgetti as I like to call it, can be eaten raw or cooked. If cooking, it requires minimal boiling time - about 60 seconds and they are ready. Be careful to drain well though and pat-dry if necessary as they do hold a lot of liquid. Courgetti can also be cooked straight in a pasta sauce, heat the sauce until almost cooked through in a pan and add the courgetti - once again for a minimal time and serve. I would usually do two large courgettes or three small ones for two people.

On searching for some spiralising recipes recently I came across a website that has provided me with a lot of  lot of clean eating and spiralising inspiration called Inspiralized. Check out this website for some fantastic recipes to get you on the spiralising track - the author is particularly good at experimenting with other vegetables! Check out the pics below from Love Bites for some courgetti inspiration, my fave accompaniments being prawns and rocket!

Prawn, avocado, chilli and rocket courgetti - recipe here

Chicken, spinach, and mushroom carrot and courgetti

Prawn, olive and tomato, chilli courgetti

Parma ham, rocket and cherry tomato courgetti

Chicken pesto courgetti - recipe here

I will continue to experiment with my Sprialiser to bring you some more easy, honestly healthy dishes that you can all master at home so keep an eye out on Love Bites!

Happy Spiralising peeps!