Install google APPs in Nexus7 with Cyanogenmod already installed A few days ago, I installed the latest Cyanogenmod (version 11) on my Nexus 7. When I booted it up, I discovered that all the Google Apps were gone. 

I downloaded a .zip file from http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Gapps but now I'm stuck. I don't know how to install it. I extracted it and I do see a lot of .apk files, but there's much more stuff in there (system/ directories and whatnot).

The question is: Once I have that .zip file, how do I install the Apps (without blowing up my Nexus, if possible). I've found some results on google, but (AFAIU) all the methods I found explain how to install the Google Apps while installing Cyanogenmod, which is not my case.

Newbie here! Don't hit me too hard, please :-D
Its actually ok to install Gapps, or any other zip packages (if they're meant to be flashed), after Cyanogenmod has been installed. You'd use the Install zip from sdcard option while in Recovery mode (presumably ClockworkMod, if you followed CM's install guide) to flash the Gapps zip file. Then reboot your device and after that you'll notice that it will take a little longer to start up with a message saying "Android is upgrading". Wait for that to finish and then you'll see all of the Google apps installed.