Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti—Sophia Loren

I love spaghetti, always have, always will. However, I can’t make the same claim as Sophia Loren. In fact, I would never draw attention purposefully to my physical attributes. And since I am approaching the time in my life when metabolism slows to a slug-like pace, I need to make changes.

I was traveling through the internet yesterday and came upon a Bob and Brad episode. These are physical therapists who are quite helpful and entertaining. They were talking about getting rid of body and belly fat. One of the first life changes was reducing pasta…I immediately suffered a mild catatonic event. I love pasta.

I did find this dish on YouTube, can’t remember who the home chef was, but I did make a few changes. So full disclosure box checked.

So that was the backdrop of my new favorite dish…zucchini noodles with lemon, butter, garlic shrimp in a sauce kicked up with a little sriracha sauce. I wanted to fix a dish that would leave my little glycogen molecules standing at the bus stop waiting for the Bad Carb Wild Ride bus line.

If there is a way I can get good carbs in my system and not give up flavor, I will do that. This is a dish that allows me to do that. The zucchini noodles had basically the same texture as pasta noodles and I couldn’t taste much of a difference in flavor. Of course my taste buds may not be as refined as Sophia Loren’s or any others with pasta-based genetics. I will repeat, I love pasta and I will not allow myself to stop eating it, just slow down my consumption.

I used a Julienne peeler to make the zucchini noodles, sauteed the shrimp in butter, olive oil, salt, and pepper, Italian seasoning, and a few red pepper flakes. I then added garlic. I removed the shrimp to a plate. I made the sauce by adding lemon juice, lemon zest, butter, vegetable broth, and some sriracha sauce for a little kick and let it thicken.

After the sauce thickened, I added the zucchini noodles to the sauce for about 2 minutes while stirring and then added back the shrimp to reheat. I topped it off with chopped basil and served.

The best thing about this dish…you can still slurp the noodles like Sophia Loren.