Can eating veggies be a challenge? Well, sometimes it can be, especially when you have children who need extra convincing to get their “5 a day.” We’ve had our fair share of struggles with our daughter. She seems to go through phases: Some days she can’t get enough of carrots and potatoes, while other days she doesn’t want to eat veggies in any shape or form.
If you’re looking for solutions to make veggies more fun for kids and your food more stylish overall, then a spiralizer is the way to go. Spiralizers are among the hottest kitchen gadgets of the moment, and I was lucky enough to try out several models at the latest edition of the International Housewares Show, back in the spring. Knowing how fashionable they were and how competitive the market had been lately, I was very excited when Gourmia contacted me and asked me to test and review their electric spiralizer. Enter the Gourmia Curly Q spiralizer! 🙂
Right off the batt, I liked the compact design of the Curly Q spiralizer, which is relatively small and thus convenient to store on the kitchen counter for everyday use.
The Gourmia Curly Q spiralizer has an ergonomic 4-cup EasyGrip bowl, which collects a generous amount of spiralized food and is dishwasher-safe. The appliance comes with three spiralizing cones, with cutting blades of different sizes: noodles, thick noodles and ribbons.
According to Gourmia, this appliance can spiralize a variety of firm fruit and veggies, such as apples, pears, zucchini, jicama, cucumber, carrots, onions, beets and even sweet potatoes. To spiralize successfully you must press one end of the fruit/veggie down firmly into the X blade end of the food pusher (pictured below). This step is critical to ensure the fruit/veggie stays in place throughout the spiralizing process.
I did not get the chance to spiralize fruits. However, I did use the Gourmia spiralizer with veggies quite a few times, mostly to make appetizers. With New Year celebrations right around the corner, I decided to focus on salads, and the first salad I made was this one. I spiralized the cucumber instead of dicing it, and used the ribbons setting/cone. I was so anxious to see the end result!
This is how the salad looked like right before adding the oil, salt and pepper and chopped parsley. The ribbons of cucumber were just beautiful!
Below you have a picture of the finished product. The spiralized cucumber rendered sophistication and a certain playfulness to the dish, and made it truly stand out. Our daughter loved the funny-looking cucumber!
I used the noodles setting/cone to spiralize carrots for our beloved winter salad, and the results were stunning as well:
Amazing color and spirals!
This is how the salad looked right before adding the final elements…
… and this is a picture of the salad in its final stage. I cut the spiralized carrots into approximately 3-inch long noodles and served the salad to all members of our family. Our daughter had a blast eating the veggies – and playing with the spiralized carrots, of course 🙂
Is there anything that could be made better with this spiralizer? I for one would love to see an improvement in terms of minimizing veggie waste. I had my husband help me on a few occasions, and he applied a lot of pressure on the food pusher to make sure every last bit of veggie was spiralized. Even so, I ended up with significantly sized veggie leftovers. Being the thrifty person that I am, I did not throw these away, but stored them in the refrigerator to use in soups and stews. Still, it would have been nice if the carrots had been spiralized in their entirety – or almost in their entirety.
I also wish the top part of the spiralizer were detachable. Without exception, every time we spiralized we were left with bits of veggies stuck inside the spiralizer, which needed thorough cleaning. Since this part is not detachable, I had to take the whole spiralizer (which has an electric cord) over to the kitchen sink to wash, which to me was uncomfortable and a bit scary (the electric cord part in particular!).
Overall, I was impressed with the performance of the Gourmia Curly Q spiralizer. My family enjoyed the “revamped” salads I made for our New Year celebration, which remained nutritious and healthy while skillfully benefiting from more appetizing looks. With one daughter that sometimes needs convincing to eat her fruit and veggies, this spiralizer has proved a useful addition to our kitchen, and I will definitely continue to use it in the future.
*Disclaimer: Gourmia sent me the Curly Q spiralizer free of charge to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed here are my own.
Leave a Reply