Zucchini Spaghetti With Marinara Sauce & Sausage

Zucchini Spaghetti is a nice substitute sometimes. Mikie isn't really a big fan of macaroni in general and usually will opt for a rice dish over pasta any day of the week. Zucchini however offers a fun healthy alternative, since it happens to be one of those vegetables that inherits the flavors of whatever it's cooked with.



The kids also got a kick out of it since it's always fun to eat food that's the wrong color. It also helps that they have no clue that they're actually eating something that's good for them. It's a nice change of pace. It's a little crunchier than eating spaghetti and very tasty.




Now the sausage and tomato sauce is entirely up to you. We had some left over tomato sauce so we opted to use that. Normally you'll eat zucchini spaghetti with butter sauce, pesto or alfredo. Sausage is also a little rustic for this dish. A nice piece of fish could help make this a lighter meal.





INGREDIENTS

• 3 Large Zucchinis
• 1 Large Can of Pureed Tomato
• 1 Can of Tomato Paste
• 1/4 to 1/2 Cup of Red Wine
• 1/4 Cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 Cloves of Chopped Garlic
• 2 Chopped Shallots
• Italian Seasonings (Oregano, Basil, Parsley), Salt & Pepper
  
• 1 Package of Sweet Italian Sausage
  

COOKING DIRECTIONS

• Begin by heating some olive oil in a medium sized sauce pan on medium heat.
• Add in chopped shallots and garlic and heat until golden brown.
• Add in can of pureed tomato and paste and mix.
• Add in red wine and seasonings and then reduce heat to low and let simmer.
• Heat the sausage in a pan with a drizzle of olive oil until brown. You can either add these to the sauce or not when finished. Joe likes this, Mikie doesn't.
• Peel ribbons of zucchini either with a mandolin or a vegetable peeler. Since we don't own a mandolin we used a vegetable peeler to cut wide ribbons of zucchini.
• Cut ribbons into spaghetti width size strands or as close as you can get.
• Blanch the zucchini in boiling water for 1 minute (no more, no less-- otherwise the zucchini will become baby food) and then drain it and shock it in cold water to stop the cooking process. We ran cold water in the colander for about a minute.
• Serve with tomato sauce, sausage and a little grated parmesan cheese.
  

Shrimp With Garlic Shallots And White Wine

We sauteed Shrimps, Shallots, Garlic, White Wine and Butter together and served this dish over pasta. This is a very simple recipe that can serve up to 4 people. When shopping, we chose a small package of raw de-veined shrimp (61-70 count per pound). If you want bigger shrimp, you'll get a lower count. Since our shrimp is going over pasta and has to feed a bunch of hungry kids we opted for the smaller size. This is also handy if you want left overs or folks wants seconds. To start things off we got a pot of water boiling while we did our prep work (I would caution those that prep slower to wait until the shrimp is almost completely cooked until you start boiling your pasta). As soon as the water starts boiling, we added our spaghetti and let it begin to cook. After finely chopping up 2 shallots, and 4 cloves of garlic, we sauteed these in 4 tablespoons of butter instead of olive oil while our pasta cooks. We're using butter as a base, because it's more flavorful and less greasy. We peel all the shrimp and add them to the garlic shallot mix and saute everything until they shrimp are nice and pink. When our shrimp are all almost cooked, we add in 2 cups of white wine and let everything boil and cook until the alcohol smell is gone. We picked up some beautiful Pugliese bread from Nugget this evening to serve with our dinner and cooked up some spinach in olive oil and garlic, to serve as a side dish. Next we take a strand of pasta out with a fork and fling it against the wall. The rule of thumb here is "If it sticks to the wall it's done!". Now before closing this entry, I wanted to mention a discussion I had with some folks at work today. We were discussing exactly how we go about planning our meals, and here are a few helpful things that we do in our family to make things a little easier. 4 Ways To Simplify Your Shopping 1) Have a Flexible Meal Plan If you go food shopping once a week or once every two weeks it's a good idea to make a meal plan for the time period between now and your next time food shopping. We like to list our meals for 2 weeks and have a rough outline of what we want to buy that will fill our meal plan. 2) Take Advantage of Whats on Sale Now is where the flexibility comes in. Your meal plan can and should make allowances for whats on sale at the store. If you have planned London Broil and steak prices are crazy, you should probably look for something cheaper... like Carne Asada (a dish we will be preparing soon). 3) Break Down Your Meats After we go shopping we come home and break down our meat into proper portions for cooking a dinner for our whole family. This saves time having to defrost more meat because you ran out, or not having enough to make a complete meal. It's also easier to keep inventory of what you have. 4) Buy Fresh! You should go back to the supermarket at least once or twice a week to restock your vegetables so that you are always using fresh ingredients when you cook. Fish is also a dish you want to have as fresh as possible. I'm Joe - owner of Pool Marketing and Pool Contractor and this is my recipe for a great meal.