So I have been looking for lower calorie alternatives to my favorite meals, with lots of veggies in play. The other day something came across my feed, and it was sweet potato noodles made with my favorite kitchen gadget- the Veggetti.
As I always say, most people do quite of bit of their tasting of food through their eyes, so I wanted this to be visually appealing too!I picked up some of my favorite vegetables, some imitation lobster ( a combination of Alaskan Pollack and real lobster), a huge sweet potato (thanks Frogpond farm stand) and went to work.
Here is the finished plate! Kind of pretty with all of the colors and textures.
Let me start you out at the beginning. I cleaned and peeled the huge sweet potato, then put it into the veggetti and made the thick spiral noodles. ( If you want to know more about the veggetti maker- look at my older post from January 2016) When they were spiralized.. I put them in a glass bowl with a scant quarter cup of water and a sprinkle of salt.Next I cut all of my stir-fry ingredients into their desired shapes. Remember to keep the sizes and shapes of your ingredients as standardized as possible. And, I try to have a plan on how much time individual ingredients are going to need to cook, and I add ingredients to the saute skillet in a "longest to shortest" time frame. The goal with a great stir fry is to have all of the veggies be crisp tender and have any proteins be fully heated!
Here is the mise en place
The sweet potato curls got a plate cover over them and I put them in the microwave. Cooking them on high in 30-45 second intervals, I tasted them frequently to get the crisp tenderness that I wanted. I like the crisp tender texture and found that it took about 4 or 5 minutes to get the noodles to this point. While cooking them, I started on the stir fry.
In the saute skillet, I added about 1/4 cup of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter. I find that mixing them together gives me a deeper flavor without the risk of burning the butter. Because I wanted a garlic and dill sauce, I added the garlic first over med high heat so that the oil would flavor with the garlic. In next went the onions and the Pollack/Lobster chunks so the onions could soften and the Pollack/Lobster would have enough time to heat thoroughly.
In quick succession , I added the broccoli, let them saute for a minute or two, and then the rest of the veggies and a few sprinkles of dried dill weed. A couple of fresh grinds of salt and pepper topped them all off. I sauteed them over medium heat, turning them with a spatula gently so they would maintain their shape. After 5 or 6 minutes of sauteing, I tasted for desired crisp tenderness (be careful not to overcook!) and removed the pan from the heat.
Pile the gorgeous sweet potato noodles on each serving plate- (Some of them were 18 inches long!- YUM!) and add a good helping of the sauteed veggies and fish. To brighten the ending, I added a capful of lemon juice drizzled over the top, and of course a little Parmesan.
The taste was amazing. Long slightly crisp noodles and veggies in a garlick-y butter-y dill sauce with the slight acidity of the lemon to make them dance in your mouth. I can't wait to try this again with other ingredients! So very pretty and delicious- Sweet potato noodles are my new Ramen noodle substitute.
I would say to all my aspiring fantastic cooks that maybe reading this blog- go crazy on the colors of your veggies and whatever proteins you want. Clean out the produce draw of your refrigerator!. For those of you who want to know what I added, here is the list:
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 large onion, julienned
1/2 pound of the Pollack/Lobster, chunked
1/3 head of broccoli stalks, also julienned
3 small sweet pepper, the minis- julienned
5 or 6 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 roasted red pepper, julienned
If you look closely at the broccoli, you will see that there is more stalk on them than I usually leave. There is a reason to my madness. A huge trend in food hitting the world last year and in 2016 is something called "Roots to Stem", and it is a movement to have as little waste as possible from your food ingredients. With the extreme amount of food that is wasted each year- and the amount of people who are starving, I am making an extra effort to use up all that I can from any ingredient I use. Watch for some, I am sure, informative and funny blogs about my trials and tribulations doing that!
Ohh- and some exciting news! I am working on a website where you can find all of my recipes plus some cooking technique videos, and whatever else you want to see or I want to share. Check it out soon- www.Christineconsler.com Let me know what you want to see. You can go now- there is a pretty picture up while I concoct!
Talk with you soon- as always
Live Peacefully. Cook Fearlessly
Chris
I keep saying I'm not going to get any more kitchen gadgets, but I may have to get a Veggiti after all....
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