Nearly two months ago, on a whim we bought a kitchen gadget called a "Spiralizer". As my Facebook friends know from all the photos I have posted, we have used the Spiralizer quite a bit and for the most part are more than pleased with it. [see this and this].
Over these two months, we have spiralized zucchini, eggplant, broccoli stems, onions, and potatoes. Our most recent adventure involved broccoli stems.
When we first got the contraption, we used it for potatoes and onions. They were fabulous. Mostly we use it for zucchini and onions, and we love them done with a spiralizer. And now that we have tried broccoli stems, we have another way to enjoy broccoli.
Here are the pluses:
- The spiralizer works really well with most foods.
- It is fun to use.
- The resulting noodles are impressive.
- Many of the noodles have excellent taste and consistency (I wasn't quite so thrilled with the eggplant noodles - see below).
- Clean-up is pretty easy. We just rinse off the parts and let them air dry.
The cons:
- Eggplant is the only thing we have tried with the Spiralizer that didn't work out very well. The texture of eggplant is too fragile and coarse to work; the eggplant kept crumbling and falling apart.
- The Spiralizer doesn't spiralize the entire piece of vegetable. It leaves a "core" and an end piece about 3/8" thick [see the above photo]. I can see from the product design why this happens, and I don't mind cutting up the remnants.
- You have to make sure the back end of the vegetable is cut square. Otherwise it just gets ripped up by the teeth that are supposed to hold it in place. Of course once you figure this out, it is easy to do.
Friends tell me a similar device is available at Walmart. But if you want to order one from Amazon, please use this link: spiralizer
