(Everything But) The Kitchen Sink Pasta Sauce and Shiritaki Noodles

In my ongoing search for a low-carb pasta replacement, I've learned about shiritaki noodles, which sounded too good to be true. It turns out, they may be. The Yum or Not jury's still a little out here in Ottawa.

The Captain and I used to eat 2 meals on rotation: tacos and pasta with red sauce. I am really good at making those two things. I'm rarely missing carbs, but every now and then, I crave my old pasta-packed lifestyle.

On reddit, I read about shiritaki noodles, a Japanese noodle made from yams and/or tofu that can have 0 calories and 0 carbs. I have added them to my shopping list. In our last-minute emergency Easter brunch shop, I spotted packs of the yam/tofu ones with low calories/low carbs at Herb and Spice. They were only $1.99 for each 8 oz pack, so I picked up two to try.

Apparently, shiritaki noodles are sort of a miracle as they look and behave like pasta but without the high carb issues.

In reading about them, there were a few worries:
#1. A fishy smell.
#2. A slimy texture.

Those of you who know my food issues will understand why these are problems.
#1. I am not a fish/seafood fan. I also have the nose of a bloodhound and can sniff out any lingering unpleasantnesses.
#2. I am a textural eater. I love the taste of them, but cannot eat bananas because of the texture. I often cannot eat fruit because it has to be ripe to the day. One day too hard or one day too soft and I'm turned right off. I can't eat Jell-o. And, don't even get me started on yogurt. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who eat big spoonfuls of yogurt. Slimy things, oh dear.

Read on to see if I was able to overcome even more of my food issues. (In writing this blog, it seems like I have a lot of food hangups. The count is now at three: vegetarian hangover, seafoody smells, slimy texture issues)


(Everything But) The Kitchen Sink Pasta Sauce and Shiritaki Noodles
It's just about grocery time for the Captain and I, so we're down to very few fresh ingredients. I scraped up whatever I could find in the fridge and cupboards to whip this together (don't tell him, though - he's got ten times the food hangups I do!).

I should plan out these photos better. The fake Neo-Citran, cat food in Tupperware and lint rollers were NOT included in this recipe. Almost everything else in this photo was.

Ingredients:
1 jar of Classico Spicy Red Pepper Tomato Sauce
1 tbsp Classico Basil Pesto
4 tbsp grocery store bruschetta
1 tsp squeezable basil
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 tbsp garlic powder (not garlic salt)
2 tsp dried red pepper flakes (I didn't actually measure any of these dry spices, I just shook liberally until I liked the look!)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 cup light cream cheese (leftovers of three different kinds of light cream cheese - roasted garlic, plain and herb)
500 g extra lean ground turkey

Spice Storage Protip: We have a drawer underneath our countertop range. I have our bajillions of spices in that drawer, but they're all standing up and I used to have trouble finding which one was which. As you can see in the above pic, I label the spices with Sharpies (and sometimes even the help of duct tape. Spicy time saver.

Procedure:
Sauce:
-Brown turkey in saucepan on stove (if you usually use ground beef, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the comparatively small amount of fat that drains off).
-Spice up your meat.
-Add basil, bruschetta, Classico sauces, and cream cheese. Increase heat and stir rapidly. Don't let it all burn to the bottom of the pan, but get everything mixed in a lovely way.

Back left: shiritaki noodles trying to un-goo. Back right: Captain Handsome's penne. I now realize that, with just one pasta eater eating reasonable serving sizes, we don't need to boil a whole box of pasta. Whoops. Front: The sauce (pre-tomatoes).

-Strain diced tomatoes and add to sauce.
-I also added a little splash of some red wine we had leftover from a few nights ago.
-Serve over shiritaki noodles.
-Makes 8 servings

Crud. I should have rotated this for you. Sorry. This is the other package of shiritaki I have for later. I used the fettucine shaped ones tonight. This one is full of spaghetti shaped ones.

Shiritaki Noodles:
-Open plastic bag containing noodles and don't breathe in too deeply (it's not horrible, but you don't want to really savour the smell either).

-Pour noodles into collander in sink and run cold water over top for a good several minutes until no smell remains (this took me longer than I care to admit here in a public forum).
-Shake as much water as possible from noodles and place in dry pan on stovetop over heat. This is supposed to change their texture from gooey to more al dente. I did it for about 5 minutes, experimenting with heats and they stayed pretty stretchy with some crispy ends. Not perfect.
-Makes 2 servings


Nutritional Information:
(for one serving of sauce)
Calories: 183
Fat: 4 g
Protein: 20 g
Carbs: 9 g
Fibre: 2 g
Sugar: 6 g
Net carbs: 7 g


(for one serving of noodles)
Calories: 20
Fat: 1 g
Protein: 1 g
Carbs: 3 g
Fibre: 2 g
Sugar: 0 g
Net carbs: 1 g


Yum or Not:

The best part of this dinner, I'd say, was the chunkiness of the meat and tomatoes in the sauce.

For the amount of fresh ingredients, the sauce was yum. Overall, though, I'd say it was a medi-yum. The Captain kindly rated it an 8/10, but he only had one serving (he did have a big bowl of penne noodles with his, though). I missed my fresh tomatoes, garlic and onions. Also, I'd usually throw in some sundried tomatoes, but I skipped on those tonight.

In terms of how darn low they are in net carbs, the noodles are good. I see on the website that the manufacturer (House Foods) sells macaroni shiritaki, too. I'd like to try those. I tasted a few of the pan fried noodles and didn't love the texture, so I cut them into little pieces before pouring the sauce on. Meh. They were medi-yum. It was an OK base for pasta. A bit better than spaghetti squash, but really, I wasn't fooled. I knew I was not eating pasta.

We have a fair amount of leftovers, so I'll be eating this again tomorrow. I wonder how the shiritaki will keep with sauce on top.