Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Oodles of Good Noodles

Noodles are a fun dish, brightening up every meal but did you know they can also be packed with nutrition? Or made from favorite veggies and fruits? They can and thanks to a new cookbook they can be turned into a variety of delicious dishes, starting with breakfast and ending with dessert.

Chris Anca, creator of the blog, Tales of a Kitchen wrote this intriguing cookbook Nourishing Noodles (Race Point Publishing) about homemade noodles. These are not the typical egg noodles that most home chefs use. Instead they  are created from a variety of produce thanks to  a spiralizer, a gadget that can cut almost any vegetable or fruit into thin noodle like strips. The strips are called zoodles, ribbons and spirals.and are a refreshing departure from the usual flour kind. The book starts off with a list of the gadgets to use, including a dehydrator as well as a detailed list on how to spiralize various fruits and vegetables. Spiralizers are a great addition to any kitchen , and can be bought for as low as $19.99 at Target and Kohl's. Her advice is excellent for novices just getting the hang of the gadget and technique and how to use it on the various ingredients for the best results. The book  is divided into different sections from breakfast, lunch and dinner to snacks and appetizers,soups, and desserts. There's an extra chapter on condiments  and toppings, from coconut "bacon" dried coconut chips that have been coated in liquid smoke to nice cream, an ice cream stand in made from mushed, frozen, overripe bananas.

The recipes are fun and original. Even the most finicky of eaters would melt at them and leave the plate clean. Breakfast offers a blueberry smoothie bowl, made colorful with beet and carrot spirals and made healthy with homemade nut milk,.Kids will get a kick out of the carrot granola breakfast to go, with its' fun carrot noodles and kick of spices.Hosts will love making the pear, date and cheese canapes, decorated with ribbons of Asian pear and and dates. There are even sushi recipes that involve Fiji apples and yellow squash mixed with avocado and wrapped up in nori. Of course there are "pasta" recipes. most notably zucchini noodles with kale pesto. This is a take on the Genovese  sauce , usually made with basil but it's where the similarity ends.The sauce is left to marinate for five days before serving with the "zoodles". A tasty hot noodle dish is potato pasta aglia e olio that combines both regular  potatoes and white sweet potatoes in a garlic and oil sauce made interesting with currents, paprika and turmeric. Dessert recipes feature the whimsical carrot cake noodles, that have a cream cheese sauce. and the taste good, good for you brownies that are gluten free and nutrition dense,

Nourishing Noodles is the book to
have for noodle loves wanting something different along with those home chefs who  love to spiralize their fruits and veggies. The dishes are fun and creative , healthy and nutritious all in one, It's a great cookbook ,with oodles of good dishes and oodles of tasty noodles.

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