Hey, friends! I hope you had a lovely and relaxing weekend! It was my boyfriend’s birthday on Friday, so we celebrated by going to a concert and then went out to dinner on Saturday! That left me with Sunday to make something. I was still looking at recipes from Jo’s cookbook: 30-Minute One-Pot Meals. This time I went with the cover recipe for the Sriracha Chicken Zoodle Lo Mein.

Again, Jo also has an AWESOME recipe blog that you can find right -> here. I would also highly recommend her cookbook.

Before we begin, there is an important note to be made. If I’m going to be giving you an authentic review, it’s important to mention this:

I almost didn’t write this review, but I was reminded not to give up and keep pushing forward. As much fun as it is to try all these recipes, I can get pretty frustrated when something doesn’t turn out as I hoped it would. This week’s review just so happened to be one of those days. On top of that it was a pretty difficult day for me. Seasonal depression has been pretty rough this year. I’ve had days where I’m around the people who make me happiest, but I can’t even muster the energy to smile. Getting out of bed is incredibly difficult. You know, the works. I can’t speak for everyone, but wanting to cook and make something tasty just felt so incredibly difficult. I got frustrated because the finished product didn’t look like the picture. Now, I know exactly why it turned out the way it did, but…it still didn’t change the fact that I felt pretty defeated.

I just really want to give a shout-out to my taste tester: my boyfriend, Andy. Your support is everything to me and you give me that nudge to keep going even though I may feel the meal may not be salvaged. Thank you. Always.

So, my take on this recipe didn’t turn out picture-perfect, but the spices were great. It has that great sriracha kick that makes you sweat just a little bit. If you’re looking to clear your sinuses, that’s definitely the recipe you need to try.

What ended up disappointing me were the zoodles. I had purchased prepared zoodles before and something about them tasted off. They tasted horrendously bitter and almost as if they were drenched in vinegar. Mind you, these were sweet potato spirals that were still good to eat, but something just really put me off from buying the fresh spirals. I didn’t go with frozen either, because it’s tough getting the moisture out of them.

Well, the same problem is there when you decide to grate fresh zucchini (we don’t have a spiralizer yet). I read up on ways to get the moisture out. I squeezed it by hand and even covered it in salt to let the moisture from the veggie. I’ll say that unless you use a cloth, getting most of the moisture out of the grated zucchini just isn’t going to happen.

That’s precisely what happened to our dinner. So rather than having nice bright, crispy, zoodles…we had more of a slightly crispy, but mostly soggy zucchini noodles.

Grey’s Grade: 4.5/5

I can’t give this a low grade, because it was freaking tasty! When it comes to execution I’ll say that without a spiralizer or having an extra 2-3 hours to allow for the liquid to be strained, this can’t be done in under 30 minutes and still look like the picture. Unless you end up getting store bought zoodles. From my experience, I just couldn’t do it. For next time, however, I do have additional techniques to make these freaking zoodles turn out!

I’m not giving up just yet.

For those of you who have used the grated zucchini technique–how long did you wait before completely straining? I’ve read a few ways, but nothing with a concrete time. At this point, I’m thinking a 2 hour minimum.

Hope to hear your thoughts!

Wishing you all a great week and happy nomming!

-Grey