I know my zucchini chips might have been an epic failure, but these noodles and meatballs certainly were not! Click here to see the original recipe.
First I used my blender to chop up the carrots and zucchini and then tossed them in my KitchenAid mixer along with the other ingredients. I did make a couple of substitutions - I used ground turkey instead of chicken, and I used breadcrumbs instead of blanched almond flour (although next time i think i might even use Parmesan cheese instead of the crumbs). Letting the mixer stir it up made it a nice smooth texture. Then I used a cookie dough scoop to make nice little balls and plop them onto a cookie sheet.
Per the recipe instructions, I baked them at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. While the meatballs were in the oven, I followed the instructions for making the pesto. Unfortunately, my blender wasn't as good as a food processor in this case. So I ended up dumping it out back on the cutting surface and attempting to chop it up further by hand. It didn't work great but it tasted ok I suppose. If you don't have a food processor (I don't), I would recommend just getting some store bought pesto instead.
After making the pesto, I cooked up the zucchini noodles - these really only take a few minutes. I originally had three zucchini but i used one in the meatballs and then one had gone soft so I only had one left, so sad! I sliced it into thin strips like noodles on the mandolin (try not to also slice your finger like i did) and sauteed them in a pan with just a little olive oil, salt and pepper.
Note to self: they cook down much smaller so one zucchini is not enough for one person unless you have a really big zucchini (or a really small appetite). By the time those were done, the meatballs were ready to come out of the oven.
I ended up cooking some regular spaghetti noodles for Ryan - partially because he's not a huge zucchini fan but mostly because I didn't have enough for both of us. All that was left to do was toss the noodles/zucchini with the pesto and serve with the meatballs. The zucchini noodles look pretty good aside from the fact I didn't make enough. The meal was quite tasty (even husband-approved) and only has 320 calories per serving if you split the meatballs into 4 servings! Yummy and healthy, yay!
Here's my exact ingredients and nutrition facts from MyFitnessPal for anyone interested.
