Zucchini Puttanesca

Hellllooooo!

My absolute favorite vegetable is zucchini. I love its texture, its willingness to take on whatever flavors you throw at it, and its crazy versatility. This post has zucchini two ways if you can believe it! Best of all, zucchini grows like a weed in the Alberta summer so for several months out of the year I either have fresh zucchini courtesy of the garden my mum keeps (I help I swear!) or frozen grated zucchini to make good use of.

This is a fairly quick and simple recipe where everything gets thrown into a pot, you heat it up, taste test it all, freeze some, eat some, have a nap… well, that’s what I do anyhow.

***I got my noodling machine almost FREE thanks to my Superstore Plus points. It was VERY affordable actually, only about $20 so I think I paid about 3/4 dollars to purchase it once I redeemed some of my points. I do the lion’s share of my shopping at Superstore and find that the points really add up if you shop your offers. I use my points to buy meat, or more expensive vegetables.

Zucchini Puttanesca

Serves one for $1.70

For Sauce:

makes 5 servings, $0.70 per serving

2 Cans of tomato sauce (398ml) – $1.48

Tinned sliced black olives (200ml)- $1.18

1/2 an onion- $0.20

1 small zucchini- $0.62

Pantry items: 2 cloves garlic, chili flakes, anchovy paste, salt and pepper

Noodles- 1 medium zucchini, topped with 1 tablespoon parmesan (~$1)

Start off by chopping your onion and garlic into small pieces and sauteing them in olive oil with chili flakes, pepper, salt, dried thyme and dried basil. You want to soften these up all the way since this sauce isn’t going to be cooking for terribly long.  Once they are sauteed, add a squeeze of anchovy paste (roughly 1 teaspoon). If you can’t get anchovy paste and are using canned, use 2 and freeze the rest for next time! Then, add your chopped zucchini and saute for about 2 minutes.

Once you’re done that, open your tinned tomatoes and olives and put them into the pot. Put the lid on and bring this up to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Taste test it once it is bubbling and adjust the flavors accordingly. I find myself adding a splash of balsamic to pretty much all of my tomato based sauces. 

Once your sauce tastes perfect, take the pot and set it in a sink of cold water, slowly draining with the water running on cold. This will safely, but quickly, drop the temperature of your sauce so that you can get it in the freezer. In an upcoming post I’m going to talk allll about freezer safety so if this doesn’t make sense as described, don’t worry too much.

On the day you’re ready to eat your sauce with some zucchini noodles, put together your spiralizer and grab 1-2 medium zucchinis to work with. Wash them up and grab a knife.

Using your knife, trim the ends off of your washed zucchini and then cut them in half as shown.

Take one of those halves and affix it into your spiralizer. Spin away!

I love this spiralizer because it allows you to put a plate under the noodling apparatus to catch your spiralized vegetables directly. I recommend cutting your noodles about every fifth crank or so- this way, you don’t have never-ending noodles that make you look like a heathen while you’re trying to eat.

Once you have your noodles ready, heat up some sauce and top your noodles with them! I like to garnish with a healthy serving of parmesan, but if you don’t want to, don’t! It’s good either way. If you want to keep this gluten free AND vegan, leave out the cheese and the anchovy paste. It’s truly a flexible dish, if you are leaving out the anchovy paste you will just want to season a bit more liberally with your dried spices.