Courgetti with creamy sauce & veggies

Already shown in my What I Eat #26 blog post last week, but today I am bringing you the recipe of one of the meals I featured in that blog post. The other week I tried out something new for me. Well, not completely new, as I have been having courgette turned into noodles for a few years now. However, one essential piece of kitchen equipment that makes life a lot easier when you try to turn courgette into noodles was missing from my kitchen arsenal until recently.

Courgetti with creamy sauce & veggies

Courgetti, zoodles, or whatever you may call them, is nothing more and nothing less then a courgette/ zucchini turned into strings. You can do that in different ways and up until my purchase, I used to use a julienne peeler to turn my courgette into noodles. A spiralizer is however a lot quicker at the job, but I had never spotted any here in Holland. Until I very randomly was out looking for a new clock timer and ran into one at Blokker. I used that spiralizer to make this recipe.

Total time: 30 mins. Prep time: 10 mins. Cooking time: 20 mins. Serves: 4 – 6.

Ingredients:

• 2 courgette (I show three but ended up not using one)
• leak
• mushrooms
• frozen spinach
• creme fraiche or cooking cream
• garlic cream cheese
• sliced ham

As you can see there is only a handful ingredients here. It’s the tools you use that will allow you to turn this into a delicious dish. You will of course need a spiralizer, a large pan and a smaller pan. Oh and a cutting board for chopping up those other veggies of course.

Ta-dah! I bring you my latest gadget! This spiralizer cost €14.95 and comes with three different blades that are stored inside the base of the peeler. I used the smallest blade for making the courgetti you see here. It comes with a suction nob on the bottom to ensure safety and I found this easy to clean as the whole thing comes apart. You simply mount your veggie in the middle and turn.

The result of two whole courgettes is this huge mountain of spiralized vegetables. Some of the strings were so long that I had to use a knife to cut up the zoodles else it would be impossible to eat. And it was fast. I think it took me 2 minutes to turn 2 courgettes into noodles. How handy is that?! And the rest was also easy.

Step 1: Spiralize your courgett and set aside.

Step 2: In a large pan, heat up some oil and fry up some garlic. Add your leak and ham and toss around until lighted browned along the edges.

Step 3: Add mushrooms and spinach. Again stir well and keep stirring until your mushrooms have cooked and browned.

Step 4: Add creme fraiche & garlic cream cheese. Since this already adds a lot of flavor, I didn’t use too much other seasoning, just a little pepper.

Step 5: Time to cook the courgetti. I decided to take a smaller pan and take a handful at the time. I tossed it round in some olive and garlic until it shrank.

Step 6: Toss into large pan and stir into the rest of the mixture. Make sure the heat is on low and that the sauce if bubbling away nicely. This will allow the courgetti to cook a little more.

Step 7: Repeat with all remaining courgetti.

You don’t want to overcook the courgetti which is why I just tossed it first and then heat it up in the sauce. For an even quicker process, you can also cook your courgetti in a microwave (highest setting for 2 mins). I didn’t do that as I then find the courgetti to be quite flavorless and soggy. By tossing it in some oil and garlic and then putting it in with the sauce all the flavors come together much more nicely I find.

The finished result is this yummy goodness. I took a bowl of this with me to work and colleagues were intrigued as to how I made it. I can’t wait to use my spiralizer again. I already did some research on other veggies that are good with a spiralizer and I read somewhere that sweet potato make for a great noodle variation too. If you have any other tips for things I can spiralize, then please leave your suggestions in a comment down below.

Bon appetit!