Roasted Vegetables with Zucchini Noodles and Pesto

Recently I acquired a vegetti from a family member who did not plan to use it. I know I am a little slow on the bandwagon for the vegetti but it was time for me to try it out. I considered it off and on when I would see one in the store and then would just walk right past it. Not because I wasn’t interested in the idea but because we were already dicing, chopping, and shredding our squashes so I didn’t think we would benefit from such a tool.

Since it is zucchini season this was also a perfect time to have this new toy. I looked up recipes on how to cook the zoodles and what it all entailed. I even had to watch a YouTube video on how to use it since it didn’t come with the manual. The tool is pretty basic so it wasn’t difficult to really figure out.

Everything I read warned of overcooking the zoodles to a point of becoming mushy so that was my main concern initially. Then I realized I needed other items with my zoodles. This lead to roasted turnips, beets, and onions with pesto on zoodles with a bit of goat cheese.

Recipe

1 medium sized turnip

1-2 medium beets (if you desire)

1 large red onion or other onion

Any other vegetables you would like to use (other squashes, cauliflower, broccoli, etc)

Olive oil

Salt/pepper

1 medium zucchini

½ c pesto

1.      Chop vegetables and place in roasting pan. Rub with a little olive oil, salt/pepper. Cook at 350 for 10 minutes, stir, repeat. You may need to repeat again based on size of vegetable pieces and fullness of pan. You want to be able to smoothly slice through middle of vegetables.

2.     Chop end off zucchini and twist in vegetti to get noodles. Not all of the noodles will be perfect and that is fine.

3.      Heat a small amount of olive oil in a saucepan. Add zoodles and stir for about 4-5 minutes. Add pesto and roasted vegetables.

4.      Serve.

I added some goat cheese to mine along with roasted walnut lentil balls. If you are interested in finding that recipe, it is included on my website but is listed as a loaf. Instead of cooking in a bread pan, roll in to balls, do not add the BBQ sauce, and cook for about 15 minutes or so. I happened to have some left over so I added them to the meal and it was delicious. This recipe served 2 but you could add more zucchini or vegetables and feed more.

I will say that the vegetti is interesting to use. It took a few attempts to get some noodles that looked like noodles. Also, it leaves the cone shaped middle part of the zucchini. I considered cutting it up and using it but gave it to the chickens. They appreciated it. So if I didn’t have chickens or compost, I would probably add some of the left over core to be roasted with the other vegetables. Otherwise, it was easy to use and made a wonderful dinner.