Zucchini Pasta with Spinach Pesto

You know you're a total food geek when you get excited by a new spiralizer. I accept my geekness and am okay with it. But I have to say that I really love the spiralizer that my dad gave me for my birthday!

I made zucchini noodles with marinated (raw) mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and spinach pesto. Whole Foods used to carry a premade vegan spinach pesto in the fresh pasta section, but they haven't had it in a long time. I used to love it, so I decided to try my hand at making my own. It was very mild and worked really well with the rest of the flavors in this dish. 

Creamy Spinach Pesto

Ingredients:

4 cups spinach, tightly packed

1/2 cup raw cashews

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a food processor fitted with an s-blade. Process until ingredients are chopped and just slightly chunky - do not over process.

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Raw Ice Cream

I may have mentioned the summer heat before, but if I haven't, it's really hot here. There's an old saying that goes something like "When life gives you heat, make ice cream." I may be misquoting, but thats the gist of it.  

So I made some ice cream. This is raw ice cream made with a cashew base. This is the same ice cream recipe that I used in my ice cream cake a few weeks ago. It's pretty simple, as long as you have the proper kitchen gadgets. My kitchen is well stocked with gadgets, and use them often. 

First I soaked raw cashews for a few hours, then added them to my Vitamix blender with the rest of the recipe's ingredients. After it was was thoroughly mixed, I put the "cream" in the fridge for a while to cool down. 

I then added the mixture to my ice cream maker. 

I mixed up some chocolate syrup to swirl into the ice cream with raw cacao powder, coconut oil and agave. I didn't want to have to use the Vitamix again because I didn't want to have to wash it again, so I used my immersion blender with a whisk attachment. It came out a little gritty (but still delicious), so I probably should have either used the regular blender attachment or the Vitamix. Next time. 

After about 25 minutes of churning, I swirled the chocolate and some peanut butter into the ice cream. The peanut butter isn't raw, so technically this is no longer raw ice cream, but that's okay with me. I let it churn about 30 seconds too long because the chocolate swirls no long looked like swirls, but it ended up looking like some sort of chocolate ice cream experiment gone wrong. That's also okay with me, because it tasted extremely delicious. The perfect treat for a scorching hot day! 

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Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower and Wilted Spinach

This is another delicious recipe from Vegan Yum Yum! It's a nice light and easy meal that's good for a hot summer's night - although the oven was on for half an hour. It's made with pasta (I used rice pasta, of course), roasted cauliflower and spinach. The recipe called for either olives or sun-dried tomatoes, and I used both, because I like both. Instead of cooking the spinach, it's mixed with the hot cauliflower and pasta to wilt it a little. I also mixed in a little bit of nutritional yeast for a little bit of a cheesy flavor. Dennis and I both really liked this meal, and we both agreed that we'd like some chickpeas added to the dish next time.

Most of the time, white foods should be avoided, but cauliflower is an exception to the rule. Cauliflower is in the cruciferous veggie family and is very similar to broccoli in structure. Cruciferous veggies are twice as powerful as other vegetables and are packed with anti-cancer properties. Cauliflower has a very high nutrient density and is full of folate, Vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and even protein.

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Tofu Scramble

As I've mentioned before, I've been adding small amounts of things like soy and corn back into my diet. I've occasionally had a little bit of wheat here and there too, although I think wheat and gluten are going to be permanently off my menu. I have been feeling a little sluggish over the past two weeks, and I suspect that my diet has something to do with it. I've eaten out quite a bit lately, and I haven't had very much raw food. Plus it's been hot. Really really hot. And I don't function well in hot weather. This week is going to be spent getting back on track and making more light and raw meals. And spending a little more time inside in the air conditioning. 

In the meantime I'm sharing one of my favorite weekend breakfast meals with you. It's scrambled tofu and although it doesn't fit in the "light and raw meal" category, it's really delicious and packed with protein. I don't have a particular recipe – I just tend to throw stuff together, and it always comes out tasting great. I block a package of tofu by wrapping it in a kitchen towel and putting it in the fridge the night before. If you forget to that, you can also block tofu by pressing it between two heavy plates for a few minutes and let the water drain off it. I then break the block up into little pieces and add it to a pan with olive oil, apple cider vinegar and Bragg's Liquid Aminos. I also add a little tumeric and some nutritional yeast. I mix it so that the tofu is throughly coated and cook it for a bit until the tofu starts to brown a little. I then add chopped peppers, onions and mushrooms, and anything else I have in the fridge that I think might taste good in the mix. After everything is thoroughly cooked, I add some greens (in this case it was kale) to the pan and cook for a minute or two longer. The scramble is really good with a little soy sausage and vegan cheese too.

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Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles

My friend' Val's birthday is later this week. (Early happy birthday, Val!) I went into the local bookstore to buy her a gift, and ended up walking out with a copy of Vegan Yum Yum for myself. It's full of really nice color photos and everything looks so good that I just couldn't help myself. My friend Barb was with me and she said the book was food porn.


The first meal I made from it was Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles. The dish is comprised of spaghetti and shredded cabbage, carrots and broccoli with a tahini sauce. I used rice pasta spaghetti instead of wheat, of course, and I doubled the tahini sauce recipe. I think this would probably work really well with raw zucchini pasta too. This dish was so good that Dennis said he wishes a restaurant near his office made it so he could have it for lunch every day. Yum Yum indeed!

If you're not familiar with tahini, you should be! Tahini is a paste made from hulled sesame seeds. It's one of the main ingredients in hummus, and is often served with falafels. It's good as a salad dressing when mixed with a little water and lemon juice. Tahini is high in many vitamins and minerals, such as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, thiamine, folate and even protein. And it's delicious!



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Raw Pad Thai

I really like raw pasta in the summer, and I love Pad Thai, so when I saw this recipe on Organically Me, I immediately ran into the kitchen to make it. My dad gave me a new spiralizer for my birthday, and I was itching to try it out.


The new spiralizer is pretty cool, as far as spiralizers go. It has three different blades for different sized noodles. I went with the smallest for the Pad Thai.


I usually plan to use one zucchini per person when making raw pasta. I made the mistake of buying gigantic zucchinis, so we ended up with way too much food. I followed the recipe as it is written, but I made four times the amount of sauce, because it just didn't seem like enough. And because it was really, really good. I think next time I make it I will omit the cucumber and maybe add some shredded snow peas.


This dish was really, really good, and I will most definitely make it again!!


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Chocolate Chip Cheezecake Swirl

Last week my vegan group had a dessert potluck. I'm becoming known for making yummy raw desserts and I have a reputation to live up to, so I decided to try a raw cheesecake. I made a raw strawberry cheesecake last year for a coworker, and it was a big hit in the office, so I knew my friends would love a chocolate one. This was really similar to the ice cream cake I made for my birthday potluck, but it wasn't as much work since there was no ice cream maker involved and the layers didn't need to be frozen separately.

The recipe is from Ani's Raw Food Desserts by Ani Phyo, and was made mainly with cashews. The base of the cake is vanilla with a little bit of lemon juice. Chocolate syrup is swirled in once the cake's been poured into a spring form pan. The recipe called for a double batch of chocolate syrup, which I don't think it needed because the cake became really chocolaty and I had a lot left over. There's also a layer of cacao nibs in the middle to give it a little crunch. I decorated the top with cherries, because fruit always makes a cake look pretty. This was really amazingly delicious. I think it only took about half an hour to make (and less time to consume), so I will definitely be making it again!


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