Hey Look, I Can (Kinda) Cook

I am, to say the least, a not-so-fantastic cook. Jamie can throw together just about anything without a recipe and it's at worst maybe a little too salty. I have a few dishes in my repertoire that are good, but most of my dinners are described, on average, as "tolerable" or "edible"... maybe even "not poison".

I'm trying, though probably not as often as I should. But the other night when I knew Jamie wasn't going to be home for dinner, I decided to attempt something new that I had seen on the internet. (Surprisingly, not on Pinterest.) It was pretty much pasta-less pasta. Wait, what? The noodles were made of zucchini! I love zucchini! So I ran to the store and came home with this:

I was too lazy to cook my own chicken, and these were BOGO freeeeee!

So! So. So, I spent less than $10 on all of this, and I only used one of each item so my dinner cost about $4. Nice.

What I needed to do first was use my vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini and squash into long, wide, flat "noodles". This required a choice between the two vegetable peelers that I own: the frustratingly dull peeler, or the peeler with the sharp blade piece that falls out every two slices. (Note to self: dip into savings and buy a better peeler.)

After noodling up my zucchini and squash, I sautéed them in some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. After a few minutes I added a chopped tomato, the pre-cooked, packaged chicken and some of that basil stuffs. Sauté, sauté, sauté... and I ended up with this:

What you see is my dinner as well as which peeler I chose.

My result wasn't perfect, but I think I can work it out and make it super delicious. Next time I will season the "noodles" more while they are cooking; they were a little plain. I will also cook them a few minutes longer. You can see that super clear zucchini noodle on top was fully cooked, but the majority of my "noodles" still had a little snap to them. I will also use less basil. (The tube was brand new and it squirted out way faster than I had expected.) (That's what she said.) I think it may also require some grated cheese of some sort. 


So my dinner had potential! I think I'll make it again, but this time for Jamie to eat as well. If I can't perfect it, he probably can, so it might just make it into our non-existent regular rotation. We should probably cook more often.