Adventures in Vegetables Part 3- Cucumbers Galore

I’ve had some inquiries as to the brand of spiralizer that I purchased so I thought I would address that here.

I settled on a relatively basic yet highly qualified spiralizer called the Paderno.

I liked the idea of turning a hand crank and not twisting my vegetables by hand which would most likely cause repetitive wrist injury.

To put it another way I wanted to effortlessly create beautiful vegetables and not break a sweat or develop a hand cramp…Plus I wanted to keep my fingers far away from the razor sharp blades.

The hand crank is very easy to use and you simply guide your vegetables along with the handle on the side by applying pressure against the blade.

I have included a photo of the Paderno spiralizer so you can see the design in this post:

Paderno Spiralizer

When I was swapping the blades out I did nick my thumb when my hand slipped. I was grateful it was only a little nick. Do respect this kitchen tool. I have a hand brush at my kitchen sink that I solely use to scrub the blades of my ninja, food processor, and now the spiralizer. It only takes one quick distraction to slice a finger so I use the hand brush to distance my extremities from the blades.

This week my curiosity for cucumber noodles took hold and I spiralized two cucumbers into thin strands. I did slice the pile with a large kitchen knife once vertically and then once horizontally to shorten the strands.

I was really impressed at how juicy and refreshing they looked.

I simply squeezed fresh lime over them and added a few drops of lemon liquid stevia. I tossed it all together and served it up on plates just like spaghetti. I paired it with a scoop of kale from my coconut kale recipe (link: https://drandreapurcell.com/kale-mallum-a-dish-from-sri-lanka/) and a few tablespoons of fresh salsa.

It was a yummy crunchy dish.

I did have some of the marinated cucumbers left over and ate them then next day. They had marinated a bit longer so they had stronger lemon/lime flavor and and were softer but the crunch was still there. I would say two days is the maximum shelf-life. I wouldn’t try for day three. So you can have dinner and then lunch the following day and it makes for three large servings with two cucumbers.

As with any experiment I needed a test subject so I served them to my husband who was pleasantly surprised at both the taste and texture. If I had added a few meatballs to his plate he would have been completely satisfied with the meal.

So there you have it, cucumber noodles get the thumbs up and now there are three variations of vegetable noodles to consider in place of wheat based or gluten-free pasta.

Spaghetti squash (cooked)

Zucchini (blanched/steamed or raw)

Cucumber (raw)