Today began the first day in my journey to cook through the Medifast Lean and Green Cookbook. The first recipe: Spicy Garlic Lime Shrimp. This recipe calls for one of my favorite foods - shrimp! It also calls for something I've never had before - Shirataki noodles. I have heard a lot of talk about this food item around the Medifast boards and I've always been intrigued by them. To think, noodles that are on plan! Being Italian, pasta is a staple in my diet and was definitely a difficult thing to give up. I was very intrigued to sample what these tofu noodles had to offer. Because I was only cooking for myself and was unsure if I'd like the recipe, I cut the ingredients into thirds and cooked only one serving.

I followed the instructions at Escape from Obesity to prepare the noodles as I've heard from all over that unless they are completely rinsed they carry an odd smell and taste. Somewhat reluctant of trying them in the first place I didn't want my initial reaction of them to turn me off completely. I spent about twenty minutes prepping the noodles - rinsing, boiling, rinsing again - but I'm very glad I did. The noodles ended up odorless and tasteless, aside from the flavoring from the spices and shrimp they picked up.

Part of the reason I decided to take this cookbook journey is because I am somewhat of a picky eater. There are a wide variety of food items I tried going up that I didn't like and I've never revisited them to see if my tastes have changed over the years. For example, tomatoes. I hate these little red devils. But I told myself I was not going to compromise any recipes - no substations, no exclusions - whatever the book said, that's what I cooked. Looking at the picture below I realize people may question whether or not the tomatoes and green peppers actually appeared in my cooking - but they are there! I can see three or four peppers and at least one tomato. The rest must have been hidden under the noodles. When I took the noodles out of the package it didn't seem like a lot, but once plated - it's a good amount of noodles... and I think they ate my veggies!

Moving on. What did I think? Pretty good actually. I was pretty happy with the dish. The spices were fantastic! I would definitely revisit the spice blend again. The flavoring on this meal was great - just the right amount of kick to it. I of course loved the shrimp. The noodles, well, hahaa - they were interesting. They ended up not tasting like anything, expect tracings of the spice blend, but they had a very interesting texture. They were somewhat chewy. I don't know if I didn't cook them all the way or if that's how they are, but I am assuming that's how they are as I not only cooked them per the instructions on the recipe, but I also boiled them an extra three minutes to rinse them. I wouldn't say they were bad - they weren't - but I also wouldn't say they were good. I really don't have an opinion of them. Would I eat them again? Perhaps. They were a nice, easy way to get a pasta fix rather than baking a spaghetti squash or peeling a zucchini. I would definitely make the shrimp with the spice mixture again - maybe I would stick some spaghetti squash in the recipe instead, or simply wait until maintenance and have some whole grain pasta. Either way, I was pretty pleased with this dish and would recommend it to those on Medifast!