Cooking for Beginners – Part 2: Summer Zucchini Pasta

As I shared in my first post of this series where I cooked Mediterranean Salmon. I’m on a mission to push myself outside of my comfort zone and learn how to cook, to feel comfortable in the kitchen. I’m far from where I want to be, but the structure of this “Cooking for Beginners” series is just what I need to stay focused and accountable to my goals.

I’m starting out with recipes that push me but yet still seem doable, i.e. ingredients I understand with no fancy cooking terms ? If you’ve watched my videos (see below and here) then you know how challenged I am. To accomplish this I’ve focused on Green Chef, which I’ve talked about how much I love them (get $55 off your first box) and the fact that everything is nicely package, directions are clear and their meals are yummy and healthy.

I also bought a cookbook that focuses on weight loss, real food, and looked to have recipes I could handle. The cookbook I picked up and got this recipe from is Instant Loss, eat real, lose weight. Love this cookbook, 100+ recipes gives me a lot to work with.

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The first recipe I picked to try was the Summer Zucchini Pasta. I had my Spiralizer I just purchased a few months back and picked up the rest of the ingredients from the grocery store.

This is what the cookbook told me I should wind up with.

Summer Zucchini Pasta

The ingredients were pretty simple. I just needed the below:

Ingredients

1/2 cup avocado oil
2 limes
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
2 medium to large zucchini
5 oz cherry tomatoes
1 (15-ounce) can black beans
1 ripe medium avocado
1/2 medium red onion
1 cup of frozen corn
1/2 cup fresh cilantro

Kitchen Utensils

One large bowl
One small to a medium-sized bowl
A Spiralizer
Cutting board (we use and love these Organic Bamboo ones)
Measuring cup and spoons
Plate
Can opener
Spoon to mix dressing
Two large spoons to mix the salad
Colander

After laying everything out, which is a must if you are a newbie to the kitchen like me. I started prepping everything.

First, to make the dressing – in a small bowl I combined the avocado oil, the lime juice (tip: roll the lime back and forth to losen up the juices), cumin, garlic powder, sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

My kitchen is under construction, don’t mind the walls ?

1 tsp of garlic powder — 1 tsp garlic powder

I needed to add all of the other pasta ingredients in the second bowl, but first I had to prep them.

I used my nifty Spiralizer to turn the zucchini into pasta. My husband is the only one that has used this before so it was my first time. I’m not great with kitchen utensils, but this wasn’t too hard to use. I suggest putting a plate under the Spiralizer. I had a bowl at first, but the bowl was too high and wouldn’t sit close enough to the base so the noodles winded up on my island.

After adding the pasta to my large bowl I prepped the other items for the salad. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half, rinsed and drained the black beans, cut the avocado (I accidentally put the whole avocado in the salad then realized I was supposed to chop it ??‍♀️), sliced the half of onion and thawed the corn and rinsed and chopped the cilantro.

By the way, have you eaten raw corn before? I’ve never eaten raw corn and it really threw me off. Or maybe I have? I must have eaten cold corn in salads that were raw, I just don’t think I ever realized I was eating raw corn ??‍♀️