Carb-conscious eating: baby marrow noodles and cauli rice

Tips to making baby marrow noodles

Baby marrow noodles (or “zoodles” a.k.a. zucchini noodles) are quite a mission to make, unless you have a spiral cutter. The good news is that you can now buy them readymade from Woolies.

The trick to preparing baby marrow noodles is to keep them as firm as possible so they are similar in texture to pasta.

To do this you need to draw out as much moisture as possible: lay the noodles in a colander, sprinkle with salt (not too much!) and let the juice drip out. This should take about 30 minutes. Heat a pan and melt either butter, olive oil or coconut oil and quickly flash fry them.

Now you can add some deliciousness:

·      Cream, grated Parmesan and some crushed garlic

·      Tomato, anchovy, chilli sauce

·      A dollop of pesto of your choice

·      Bolognese sauce

·      Crispy fried bacon, mushroom and crème fraîche

·      Chopped sundried tomatoes, flaked hot smoked trout and some cream

Tips to making cauli rice

Cauli rice is also all the rage and, like the baby marrow noodles, comes readymade at Woolworths. However,  if you want to make your own, chop it up in a food processor in small batches so that you can control the size. It should be like couscous. Cook it like the baby marrow noodles, simply heat it through and flavour with:

·      A dollop of pesto and crumbled feta

·      Chilli paste and rocket

·      Chopped olives, parsley, diced red onion, lemon juice

·      Crushed ginger, garlic and chilli with chopped coriander and a dash of soya sauce

·      Readymade Thai peanut satay sauce

·      Or simply on its own, seasoned.

Discover more carb-conscious recipes here.