Zoodles!

I was going to make spaghetti for dinner but I didn't want to have noodles.  I am watching my whole grain carb intake and wanted to find a good alternative.  I already knew someone who put there meat sauce on green beans and that sounded just terrible.  Blech!  So I went to my handy, dandy computer to see what other people were doing.  I found that some paleo dieters (not that I am a paleo dieter) use zucchini for noodles.  Well, that sounded intriguing.  I like stir-fried zucchini and that's basically what these zucchini noodles are; so I determined to try them out to see if I could be converted.

I used my regular peeler to peel noodle-like slices of my zucchini.  This actually didn't work very well since my peeler is older than dirt and the zucchini was a week old and, consequently, a little soft.  Online experts use more up-to-date tools called spiralizers.  Ooooo.  After peeling, I coated them with salt to sweat out the extra liquid.  After about 30 minutes I rinsed them off and dried them off with paper towels.  Then I put them directly in the refrigerator (for about an hour) so they could dry out a little more.  

 
After the meat sauce was ready I got out my noodles to stir fry them.  All you do is fry them on medium high in a dry pan for about 2 minutes.  Then add a little olive oil and season if you want.

I used one medium sized zucchini for one serving size.  Good health practitioners say that half your plate should be filled with veggies.  Well, health professionals, look at this plate full of veggies!  Sheesh!  I was very proud of myself.

And here are my zucchini noodles (nicknamed zoodles by beloved fans everywhere) with the meat sauce on top.  I took a bite to see if I would be converted to this crazy noodle idea.  After that, the rest of my meal was history!  The zoodles were great!  They were al dente and the consistency of regular noodles.  It was amazing that a vegetable could be soft and crunchy like a cooked noodle.  The zucchini was pretty bland so the flavor of the meat sauce wasn't clashing with the zucchini and it was just plain nice to know that I was eating a little bit healthier.  This option also gives me a whole grain carb free meal, which I am always looking for.  Yum!