Joyce Chen Spiral Slicer And Zucchini Pasta Two Ways

The Raw Vegan Zucchini Pasta With Marinara Sauce shown in the above photo is just one of the two Zucchini Pasta dishes I made tonight with my new Joyce Chen Spiral Slicer. Although this raw food pasta dish was delicious, my teenage sons preferred the Zucchini Spaghetti With Marinara Sauce  & Vegan Meatballs shown in the photo below…

Truth be told, I was thrilled to be able to make two simple Zucchini Pasta dishes for dinner tonight keeping everyone in my family happy. Although I was somewhat apprehensive to try my new Spiral Slicer for the first time (I read some mixed reviews about it on Amazon), I found it very simple to use with zucchini. This appliance supposedly turns almost any firm, solid vegetable (or fruit) into spaghetti-like strands, translucent ribbons, or thin slices. It also makes julienne strips or tiny cubes of fruits and vegetables, and provides professional-looking garnishes. However, I purchased it solely to make zucchini spaghetti and it worked great for my purposes.

Here is what it looks like out of the box…

You cannot use it with bent or curved vegetables. However, I had some perfectly straight zucchinis, each of which I cut into thirds. This is what each zucchini piece looked like when placed onto the Spiral Slicer’s Cutting Table…

You must remember to set the Cutting Adjustment lever (on the side of the Cutting Table) to the position you want: Turn the lever to the left position for strips or strands, or to the right position for slices. After the protective cover is locked into place, turning the handle clockwise while applying downward pressure with the palm of your hand will produce some beautiful-looking zucchini strands which fall into the Clear Collection Bowl.

After each piece of zucchini is “spiralized,” you must check the bottom of the blade to make sure that there are no leftover pieces stuck to it. The Spiral Slicer won’t work if any stuck pieces are left unremoved from the bottom of the blade. Here is what a stuck piece looks like…

It’s really no big deal to remove a stuck piece, you just have to remember to check before you begin “spiralizing” your next piece of zucchini. When properly used (which is easy to do), the Joyce Chen will produce some fine-looking zucchini “spaghetti” strands.

The first dish I made with these wonderful zucchini strands, was a raw vegan zucchini pasta with marinara sauce. The fresh ingredients for the sauce were made in my Vitamix blender. So colorful!

For the second dish, the zucchini spaghetti with marinara sauce and vegan meatballs, I merely heated the zucchini strands in a covered microwave safe dish for two minutes, drained the water from the dish, and topped with Rao’s Marinara Sauce and Nate’s Zesty Italian Meatless Meatballs which were heated on the stovetop.

RAW VEGAN ZUCCHINI PASTA WITH MARINARA SAUCE

From Raw Glo

Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

3 medium zucchinis

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt & Freshly Ground Pepper, to taste

8 small tomatoes, or 4 medium tomatoes

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 date

1 garlic clove

10 large basil leaves

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes

1/4 teaspoon oregano, or 2 sprigs fresh oregano

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Chopped raw kalamata olives

One handful of chopped parsley, for garnish

Directions:

Chop off the ends of 3 medium zucchinis. Using a Spiral Slicer, make the zucchini into “spaghetti” strands, and place in a large mixing bowl. Lightly coat the zucchini strands with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Mix all the ingredients (except the parsley and the olives) in a high-powered blender. Place the zucchini spaghetti into individual bowls and top with desired amount of the sauce from the blender.

Top with chopped kalamata olives, and garnish with chopped parsley.

 

ZUCCHINI SPAGHETTI WITH MARINARA SAUCE AND VEGAN MEATBALLS

From Nom Nom Paleo

Serves 2

Ingredients:

3 medium zucchinis

Rao’s Marinara Sauce (or your favorite vegan marinara sauce)

Nate’s Zesty Italian Meatless Meatballs (or your favorite vegan meatballs)

Directions:

Chop off the ends of 3 medium zucchinis. Using a Spiral Slicer, make the zucchinis into “spaghetti” strands.

Heat up the meatballs and the marinara sauce together on the stovetop.

Microwave the zucchini strands in a covered microwave safe dish for 2 minutes. Drain the water from the dish after removing from the microwave oven.

Place the zucchini “spaghetti” into individual bowls and top with the heated marinara sauce and vegan meatballs.

Enjoy!

Debby

xoxoxo