What a Fun Gizmo!

Have those of you who are parents ever been surprised to find you have been using phrases from years gone by, previously uttered only by your own parents? You young'uns who haven't yet experienced this phenomenon, hold on, you will.  The other night, while out with the family at a local pizza parlour, my 16 year old son began talking about this cool "gizmo" I had been using the night before when I was making a salad.

Shocked at hearing my mother's word coming from my son's mouth, I asked, "Where'd you hear that word?"

"That's what you called it," he replied.

"Of course," I thought, though I hadn't realized I was being my Mom again, not such a bad thing to be, incidentally.

So what exactly is this gizmo? It is a gift from my wonderful friend, Sherri, who I am very blessed to also call my next door neighbor. Sherri went with her husband earlier this year to Europe where she had many amazing experiences, including a cooking lesson in Italy. These "gizmos" were utilized in the preparation of some of the vegetables. I don't know what the actual term for this tool is, since my one semester of Italian does not afford me the knowledge needed to understand the words on the packaging. The brand name is perOni, however, if that helps. When my sweet friend returned from her trip, she presented this gift to me, saying, "I thought of you, my vegan friend, when we learned how to use these," What a cool chick!  Thanks, Sherri!

As you may have guessed, you simply push the vegetable or fruit through the wire mesh of the gizmo (that's what we will call it, from here on out, I guess). Obviously some veggies and fruits will work better for this than others. For a zucchini it was perfect. I found that starting the cuts against a hard surface was necessary, but then the veggie just slid right through with no trouble.  I felt like I was playing with Play Doh! My son loves this thing!

I found that cutting the zucchini into manageable chunks first was helpful. The whole process took about 20 seconds. You can imagine how great this tool would be for a raw diet. Here I used it in the prep for another amazing salad, the Southwest Salad with Creamy Cumin Dressing from Morgan's Little House of Veggies http://littlehouseofveggies.blogspot.com. What an inspiration that girl continues to be.

Here's my take on Morgan's salad. I think the only thing missing was the tomato. Though I am eating small amounts of tomatoes again now after my tomato overdose (long story, see prior posts) during that time I gave away all the ones that were ripe on the vine. So when I made this salad I had a garden full of green tomatoes and only one tiny red cherry tomato which is chopped into microscopic pieces and added to the salad. It is not visible to the naked eye.  My husband, the carnivore, LOVED this salad! Yippee! Because of the hefty textures of the ingredients, the salad was still great the next day even though it had been soaking in the delicious dressing overnight. Thanks again, Sherri and Morgan!