Saturday, March 1, 2008

Vegetable Ribbons in gravy

If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?
~Author Unknown

I felt like eating some pasta. And some vegetables. But if those veggies were my antipasto, does this mean I was going to end up hungry after my meal? Well, what if i combined my pasta and antipasto - or even better made my antipasto the pasta? Have I confused you yet? :)

All this started when I stumbled upon a recipe for pasta-like veggie ribbons. Fascinating! Ribbons of zucchini and carrots in a lemony sauce. I could totally work that! Well, I did ... except it only took an hour and a half of peeling those damn vegetables into ribbons. Why didn't anyone tell me this was a ton of work? I want a vegetable ribbon maker *now*!


Veggie ribbons in gravy
Vegetables a la fettucine

Servings: 4

4 long zucchini - peeled
4 long carrots - peeled
8-10 brussel sprouts - halved
1 cup silken tofu
juice of 2 meyer lemons
2 T fresh parsley
1 t cayenne
1/4 cup - grated feta cheese
salt
freshly ground pepper

Ok, get ready for applying some serious elbow grease here!

Peel the zucchini and carrots.
Use a potato peeler and peel long strips of the zucchini and carrots - we basically want strips/ribbons of these veggies. I found that it was a lot easier to make strips of zucchini than carrots - those damn carrots are *so* damn hard!
Once the veggies are all ribboned out, throw the zucchini into a pot of boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. No more or it'll turn into mush! Throw the zucchini into a bowl.
Do the same 3-minute cooking thing for the carrots, drain the carrot strips and add them to the bowl.
Now cook the brussel sprouts in the boiling water for 4-5 minutes before draining them out.
Puree the tofu with the lemon juice, parsley and cayenne, season with salt and pepper.
Cook the tofu puree on medium-low for 2-3 minutes before adding it to the veggies.
Toss the vegetables with the sauce, season with salt and pepper.


Opinion?

It turned out pretty tasty. The vegetable ribbons were perfectly cooked and picked up the flavours really well. The tofu sauce had this mildly nutty taste that blended really well with the sweet-tart flavours of the meyer lemons - that was really yummy!

The only thing I wasn't super happy about is how my ribbons turned out - they were a real pain to work with, I'm wondering if I needed a different peeler here to make life easier. Plus the carrot strips did not turn out as long and dainty as I wanted them to be. Whatever, it tasted pretty happy :)

I meant to send this out to Lady Coffee yesterday, but totally zoned out. This is my entry for JFI-Lemons/Limes.


12 comments:

Dhivya said...

wow!innovative idea....looks yummy

Cham said...

First time to ur blog, Oh boy , u took 1 1/2 hour to make ribbons, But it looks so colorful :) very different twist.

Raks said...

That looks so clolourful and heatlhy with all those veggies and tofu!

Finla said...

What a wonderfull idea

Susan said...

Great idea to minimize carb overload and get a double dose of veggies. A very festive dish.

Shammi said...

you're a patient woman, I must say :) I'm going to try this recipe - I have a fantastic peeler which will do the job nicely! This sort of work is easily done if you're watching a sitcom or movie while peeling :D

Chris said...

Cool dish! I just bought tofu and looking for recipes. Thanks!

And , thanks for visiting my blog. :)

Unknown said...

Happened to see your blog through your comment on mine..U have a nice blog..

Minti said...

Hi Krishna,

Veggie ribbons sound interesting - now if only I could find a easy way to make those ribbons. Wait - would a mandolin slicer on the thinnest setting work?

KayKat said...

Shyam, I went through 2 episodes of House as I was cooking this - made it a lot more fun :)

Minti - the mandolin should work great for thinly slicing the veggies. I just ordered one right after I cooked this!

FH said...

Delicious! Love the gravy ingredients. I made Zucchini ribbons in Asian salad, posted at FH last year!:)

anju said...

Loved the veggie ribbons. I have been wanting to buy a mandoline since so long. I guess I will now.:)