Vegetable noodles Day One Vegetarian Week

Dinner on day one I was craving pasta so we decided that I would make vegetable "noodles".  I had found this recipe on... you guessed it... thefoodinmybeard.com.  His original recipe can be found here Vegetable Noodles.  I did however tweak his recipe adding some yellow squash in addition to all the other veggies, and adding garlic to the sauce.

Here you see almost all of the ingredients that I used in this dish.  I tried to use the freshest ingredients, but in Northern Minnesota this time of year it is difficult to find and pretty expensive.  I am definitely looking forward to summer when I can grow my own herbs.

From left to right we have leeks, basil, zucchini, sun dried tomatoes, yellow squash, asparagus in a beautiful Minnesota Wild cup, oregano and carrots.  The two items missing are the garlic, which was an afterthought, and fresh marjoram, which I couldn't find at any of the local stores. 

I started by slicing the squash and zucchini very thin on a mandolin ( one of the best Christmas presents ever).  The thickness/ size of the "noodle" should be similar to fettuccine.

Ooooohhh weeeee check out those noodles.  I had to cut some of the bigger ones in half to keep the size somewhat uniform.  Next I used a peeler for the carrot strips.  I do have a fancy smancy peeler like Dan at thefoodinmybeard.com, but it is still packed away somewhere in the attic.

I like those purdy colors right there.  After this I sliced up the leeks.  Believe it or not this was the first time that I had used leeks in any recipe.  They were very flavorful and cooked up very nice.

They come in bunches of two so I will have to find another recipe for the one that I didn't use.  From what I have read they are similar to onions so knowing me I will find something to do with them.

The last vegetable and most tedious to to slice up was the asparagus.  The difficulty was due to the fact that the asparagus is very thin and small this time of year, so once again this might be better to make in the summer/fall to get better produce.

                                                                        Mid slicing

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my closeup"  Check out those yummy veggies.

Start by heating up a tablespoon of olive oil and add in the leeks and carrots.  Saute them for around 5 min and then add in the asparagus, zucchini and squash.  These three items do not take long to cook, also you don't want your "noodles" to get too soggy.

While you are cooking your noodles start using your multi-tasking abilities and blend up your sauce in your food processor or blender. 

Here we have the fresh basil, oregano, marjoram (if you can find it), 1 handful of julienne sliced sun dried tomatoes, one clove of garlic and 3/4 cup of milk.  If you would like a heavier sauce, which I don't think is necessary and adds calories, you can use a heavy cream.

Before the blending when it still looked pretty.  The end color turns into kind of a swampy color, but don't let that fool you it is very tasty and fresh.

Finally you mix in the sauce with all of your "noodles".  Let this cook for about another 5 min until sauce and noodles are hot.  To plate this lovely dish use a fork and twirl the noodles into a small mountain shape and top with a few oregano and basil leaves.

To our surprise even sans meat this dish was very, very filing.  I guarantee that we will make this dish in the future.

I know I have talked about how non functioning and small my kitchen is, but I thought a visual aid was needed so all can fully understand what I am working with, here you go.

This is mid prep for dinner so please pay no attention to how disheveled the kitchen looks.  These fabulous cabinets used to be two toned 1970's, very fancy.  We decided a temporary fix would be painting them white and with the new floors I think they are very tolerable.

I also wanted to show my method of following a recipe.  Even though I have tons and tons of cook books I still end up with my computer on the butcher block as seen below.

Tune in to the next blog for my major FAIL while making veggie Thai lettuce wraps.  I won't spoil the whole thing, but it involves too much lemon grass.  UGH.

Vegetable Noodles

1 Zucchini
1 Yellow Squash
2 Carrots
1 Leek
8-10 Asparagus spears
1-2 Tablespoons of Olive oil
3/4 cup of skim milk
1 bunch of Basil
1/3 cup of oregano leaves
1/3 cup of marjoram leaves
1 clove garlic ( or more if you love garlic like I do)
1 handful of Sundried tomatoes
salt
pepper

Start with slicing the squash and zucchini on a mandolin see picture of plate above for amount.  Slice up carrot with fancy peeler or juice regular peeler and set aside.  Next cut off all greens on the leek and slice up the white part into small thin strands simliar to the size of angel hair pasta.  Finally slice up the asparagus to whatever size you would like.

We start by heating up the oil in a pan and adding the leeks and carrots, saute for around 5 min or until bendy.  Next add in the squash, zucchini and asparagus once again cook for about 5-8 min, make sure not to over cook and get mushy.  While the "noodles" are cooking start on your easy, but flavorful sauce.  Combine basil, oregano, marjoram, garlic, sundried tomato and milk.  Blend in a food processor until relatively smooth add this to your "noodles" and heat up until it is warmed through.  Plate the food into small swirled mountains of "noodles" and sauce and dress with oregano sprigs and perhaps some basil.  THEN SCARF!!! hahaha. 

Vegetarian Week (Mary Moon, Mary Moon)

So this week Trevor and I decided we would attempt to do all vegetarian meals.  I really wanted to step out of the boring old salads and Bocca burgers (although we did have those once this week) and try some dishes/ meat substitutes that we have never had before.  We started off the week very promising, had one fail and will finish up with delicious.  Truthfully I will always be a carnivore and keep loving a medium rare cheeseburger, but I hope that in the future we can integrate at least one vegetarian meal a week. So here goes nothing.