LOSING WEIGHT EATING SHIRATAKI NOODLES
You know shirataki noodles are my favorite food. I discovered them about a year ago in the deli section of the supermarket when I was looking for something to eat for dinner, I was sick of the fast food, fat soaked options that I had been indulging in for way too long and was concerned about my burgeoning waistline. There they were on special, just sitting there almost begging me to buy them. I read the pack and it said that all I had to do was heat them up, shirataki noodles are already cooked and ready in moments after you remove them from their plastic. You just give them a bit of a rinse under the tap and pop them into a pot of boiling water. Then you just flavor them to taste.
The packet also said that the shirataki noodles are high in fiber and contain no calories, what a bonus I thought just what I was looking for. So I bought those noodles and took them home to try them. I also purchased soy sauce, garlic, onion, spinach and a few other vegetables and then wandered home with all of my goodies to cook up a storm. An hour and half a bottle of red later I was stuffed and the big bowl that had been full of shirataki noodles was empty.
Since then I have cooked shirataki noodles with almost anything that you can think of, they are fantastic and they have a pretty neutral taste so you can add whatever flavor you would like to them. I have tried them with chicken sautéed in peanut sauce with bean sprouts, shallots and onions. That was a recipe that I learned when I was watching a cooking show – they featured shirataki noodles and demonstrated a couple of quick and easy recipes for people like me, time poor busy professionals.
I began to try and convince my friends to try shirataki noodles as well and one night I held a dinner party and invited a few of them around and all of the dishes – including dessert were made from these tasty and versatile noodles. We started out with an entrée of fresh steamed whole fish (little ones) on a bed of noodles flavoured with garlic, ginger and lemongrass. The main course was shirataki noodles cooked with chicken, apricots, carrots and capsicum – I love the sweet and sour combination of this dish. For desert we had shirataki noodles with fruit salad, condensed milk and homemade coconut ice cream.
My guests were a bit skeptical at first and thought I had gone shirataki noodles mad! But once they tasted all of the different dishes, saw how diverse shirataki noodles are they started to change their minds. Many of them are professionals like me that work long hours and don’t have a lot of time or energy left at the end of the day to eat properly. At the end of our meal we had a long chat about the health benefits of shirataki noodles. They could see that I was losing weight, looking fitter and even my skin was clearing up – all due to my change in diet giving up fatty foods an eating at least three meals a week of shirataki noodles. Pretty convincing arguments even if I do say so myself.
So now we share recipes and sometimes even have competitions to see who can make up the tastiest and most way out dish with shirataki noodles. My favorite dish well that’s shirataki noodles lasagne. I have always loved lasagne, being from an Italian family it is almost a sin not to eat lasagne. So one night I tried making it with shirataki noodles and it tastes pretty good. The real taste test was when my mother came over and I served it to her. She took a mouthful, then another and another till her plate was empty. Without a word she pushed her empty plate towards me and I filled it up with a second helping.
She polished that off and sat back in her chair and looked at me. She nodded, that’s all she did, and she nodded. High praise indeed from this woman who has been cooking pasta all her life, very high praise.
