Living in a Spiralized World

Written By: Tipsy Table - Aug• 24•14

Shopping in the Wood River Valley is diverse, eclectic and fun.   Ultra chic, luxury retailers contrast with wonderful thrift shops, benefitting excellent causes. The Barkin’ Basement provides funding to the no-kill Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley. The Community Library in Ketchum was started in 1955 with a one dollar donation from seventeen ladies who opened The Gold Mine Thrift Shop to raise funds to build a library that still today receives no funding from local, state or federal taxes.  The Attic Thrift helps to support the programs of The Advocates, a local nonprofit promoting a compassionate community free from emotional and physical abuse. The universal motto of these thrifts is “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.”

Although treasures are found daily in these thrifts, all have quarterly sales to clear merchandise and make room for the upcoming season’s items. During the spring cleanout at The Barkin’ Basement, we spied a dusty box on the lower shelf with an odd name Spirali, an unknown brand Lurch, and a description of the contents in German. Photos on the box depicted vegetables shaped like noodles. Wow, pasta without the guilt.  We snapped a cell phone photo of the box to research, but then decided to purchase as all the parts, including the instructions, seemed to be in the box, and, with the day’s discount, the cost was five dollars.

Spirali Returning home with our new kitchen gadget, I checked the brand Lurch online and found a similar piece of equipment at kitchen retailers.  Little did we know that our new Spirali is the German model of one of the current most popular culinary aids, the Spiralizer.   Our Spirali makes zucchini into pasta, carrots into rice, sweet potatoes into curly fries, and smiles in our stomachs.   The Internet is laden with veggie noodle recipes, and a few blogs are totally dedicated to spiralzed fare.

Our first dish, that very evening, was coconut shrimp soup with yam noodle, with an Asian tofu zucchini noodle salad on the side. Happy, very happy with our new culinary find.

Spiral duo vertical

The leftovers from this  grilled chicken breast with roasted yam fries and a spiral onion-zucchini-tomato salad was our picnic the next evening on the lawn at the Sun Valley Pavilion while listening to the Sun Valley Summer Symphony.  A small child wandered over to pet and talk to our Huskies, spied our salad, and exclaimed, “Mama, I want pasta like that.”  Aha, what a great way to encourage little picky eaters to learn to love and eat their vegetables.  With supervision older children might find it fun to crank the handle to make the noodles, but beware, the blades are extremely sharp.

Spiral with Cjox

These zucchini spinning tops on our shrimp bowl are what is left of the vegetable after spiralizing, making an instant garnish.  The sauce for these yellow and green zucchini spirals is a butternut squash puree with coconut milk and chipotle, served with a scatter of scallions and roasted peanuts.

2014 Spiralized with Shrimp

As Planet Earth spirals on its axis, this unique gadget is fast becoming a tool of choice not only in kitchens, but in beauty shops around the world. Here Sarah Palin™, with first dude Todd, models her spiralized coiffure.

Spiralized Sarah

 

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