Following Christmas and New Year indulgences, I'm usually happy to embrace a bit of healthy living in January. The beginning of 2012 saw me not only hungover but engaged (with all the narcissistic worries about wedding photos that goes with that happy state) so when my new personal trainer suggested I try a couple of weeks carb-free I agreed to give it a go.
And swiftly began to regret it.
No fruit and no porridge meant breakfast was the hardest. Unless I got all organised and made some mini frittatas the night before (put a bit of wilted spinach in the dimple of a bun-tray, pour on beaten eggs and bake for 15 minutes - one egg makes three) then I was reduced to eating a packet of ham with my morning coffee. Not disgusting exactly, but ever so slightly wrong. A plain yoghurt and a handful of almonds were equally uninspiring reasons to get out out of bed.
Dinner and lunch were OK. I like fish and chicken and I like vegetables and salad. I could have those things in many, many combinations before I got bored of them. But I missed carbohydrates as a "base" for something else: nutty brown rice with a spicy chilli or fragrant curry, a baked potato, crisp on the outside and fluffy within to have with gussied-up tinned tuna and, most of all, pasta in all its numerous forms, each designed to hold a subtly different sauce.
Enter the spiralizer!
Jam a vegetable on the spikes, turn the handle and hey presto, pretty strands of "spaghetti". It's big in the raw food community but I found that courgettes make for the best approximation of pasta and that the noodles are much nicer if lightly steamed or warmed through briefly in the pan with the sauce. It's not quite a substitute for the real thing, but retains a pleasing al dente bite and is bland enough to go with most things you might want to top it with.
My first spiralizer-based dinner was courgette "tagliatlelle" with chilli and garlic prawns which turned out well. The next night I used a finer blade to make "spaghetti" to go with a bolognaise.
My two weeks without carbs are over now (it sent me slightly insane, causing James to Google "carb free" and "mood swings", but was otherwise successful) and only time will tell whether the spiralizer is one of those kitchen gadgets that remains a favourite or if it gets relegated to the cupboard under the sink but I'm still pretty excited about it.
Dinner tonight was soup made with a couple of sachets of miso soup, a handful of beansprouts, baby spinach leaves and some tofu. By the time the kettle had boiled I'd made two types of noodles (courgette and carrots) and the whole thing was a satisfying remedy for a cold caught over the weekend. And pretty damn healthy considering it's right at the end of the month.
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