"fake pasta" news and stories

For most of my life I ate zucchini one of two ways. It was always sliced into rounds and then was either steamed or pan fried in a little bit of olive oil. Occasionally it was cut lengthwise and grilled, but mostly that happened at the hands of cooks other than my mother, so it was very infrequent. I was 22 before I discovered that zucchini could be cooked down to a creamy consistency over low heat or that it could be finely chopped and quickly sauteed.

Once my eyes were opened to a world of zucchini cooking options I started playing around. A while back, I hit upon a way of mimicking spaghetti noodles with zucchini that has become one of my favorite ways to prepare it. I use the fine matchstick blade on my mandoline (Amazon has some for under $10 that would do the job nicely) and slice the zuck lengthwise, so that I come away with long strings of squash that look like squared off spaghetti (don't use the inner seeded area, as it just shreds).

I heat a little olive oil in a nonstick pan, mince a couple of cloves of garlic and toss it all together over medium heat until the zucchini softens but isn't mushy. I like to eat it just like that, a sort of "pasta" alio olio that's a bit healthier than the traditional one due to the use of veg instead of starch. You could also top it with pasta sauce or toss other veggies in for a primavera. Play around, anything goes as long at it tastes good.