Spiralizer me (Plant-Based Products)
I guess I made it oh - six months into being vegan before trying a raw meal. I mean, raw vegans are like Level 26 or something. I never even thought about it.... but after a trip to Raw Aura in Port Credit (amazing food btw, I'll do a Plant-Based Promenade there someday) I became obsessed with zucchini noodles.
Also, I'm lazy - so it took a while but I finally found a spiralizer at a Real Canadian Superstore in Mississauga. Also, I'm cheap - so I bought the $10 jobby. Sometimes you just gotta splurge, people. I'll never learn.
It did the trick most of the summer. I generally used it for noodles under stir fry and occasionally for 'pasta.' I laughed at the little peener of zucchini that always came out the centre after the spiralization occured.
But - I longed for a thicker noodle. Oh, how I longed for it. The noodles from the basic spiralizer were more like shreds instead of noodles and for how well that worked for a stir fry it was not cutting it for pasta at all. If you're trying to substitute a vegetable for a nice, hearty bowl of pasta you need it to be perfect because (let's face it) nothing is really a substitute for pasta (even though I push zucchini and shirataki noodles on my friends and coworkers like a drug dealer.) I vowed silently to find a new spiralizer!
We don't shop there often but I found myself at the Superstore again and found a larger, counter-top version of a spiralizer for $25. My cheapness battled my frustration at shreddy noodles and in the end I bought it. Hail to the zucchini noodle gods! It's so much better even though it's huge and bulky. We have a tiny apartment so I keep it in the box in the cupboard and pull it out when needed.
The apparatus is easily put together. The different plates slide in and out and I even used it on a zucchini from our garden that was gigantic. Like obscenely gigantic. The design of the $10 spiralizer wouldn't allow for anything larger than a Sharpie marker-sized zucchini, basically. That could be an exaggeration but you know what I mean! The noodles: thick!
I've only tried the noodle plate and only with zucchini so far but I'd like to make some beet noodles because I also love beets. I'm trying to eat healthier but some spiralized and deep-fried potatoes would also be super fly.
The only real 'pro' to the $10 jobby (and probably worth the $10 in frustration when cleaning the $25 jobby) is the little cleaning brush for getting all the zucchini waste out of the teeth of the cutting plates. The $25 spiralizer comes with a free vegetable peeler. Who doesn't have a vegetable peeler!? I think we have three now. Useless.
Verdict: Go buy a damn spiralizer! ($25 is a good deal for delicious, healthy 'pasta.')
