I know what you’re thinking. How sneaky. I entice you with dessert for breakfast then slap you in the face with a cold zucchini! But humour me a little here.
I am intolerant to wheat and dairy. In fact before I started eating raw I had begun to feel so unwell I thought I may actually be intolerant to all food. Without wheat and dairy many favourite foods become like a distant dream. Cheesy, creamy pasta is one dish I have spent (too) much time reminiscing over.
I would read recipes for raw noodles made from raw zucchini and it would leave me, well, cold. Don’t get me wrong I loved zucchini, but COOKED zucchini. I had never eaten it raw. Why would you? Salad vegetables were for eating raw, other vegetables are for cooking. Oh, poor misguided one! Abandoning my old ideas about cooking certain foods have revolutionised not only my eating but my taste buds.
Guess my favourite raw veggie discovery? Turnip. Right? So sensational in a rainbow salad, which oooh! I think I’ll have tomorrow. But I digress, let’s leave turnips for another day and return to zucchinis.
The raw lifestyle is more to me than just food. It means taking effort and care with what I put into my body, mind and spirit. Food, ideas, people and places all contribute to my state of wellbeing. Okay, so at the risk of outing myself as a little New Age-y (oh wait, did I do that already by starting a raw food blog?) I am going to quote Louise Hay.
“The point of power is always in the present moment”
I’m a new convert to Louise. I was always more than a little skeptical of the whole New Age publishing empire and twee commitment to affirming our problems away. Then one of my dearest friends got sick. Really, scary kind of sick and I did not know what to do to help. I’m a book person, a librarian by profession, so that’s what I did, I starting looking for books on healing. I found Louise’s “You Can Your Life”. I read it for my friend first, but then I read it for me..
The point is I, like many people I’m sure, always think self-defeating thoughts about positive change. “It’s too hard” “I’ve been doing things this way for too long” “I won’t stick to raw food” “I’ll do it next week, next month, next year”… And on, and on. Those negative thoughts never seem to end. And so I wouldn’t change.
My motivation for this blog was to challenge those thoughts. So it might be hard, I probably won’t do it perfectly and I might flake out before the end. But how will I know if I don’t try? And surely the attempt to make positive changes is better than doing nothing.
So I’m a convert to Louise Hay. I am challenging my old thinking and in the words of one of my favourite movies (Dead Poet’s Society – remember young, pre-House, Robert Sean Leonard? Swoon!): carpe diem! “seize the day!” and trust that any little change is a step in the right direction.
Boy, do I go off on tangents! Zucchinis. I was supposed to be talking about zucchinis and creamy pasta goodness. So, as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, I wasn’t inspired by the idea of raw zucchini. Then my friend gave me a spirooli – this cool hand operated machine that turns veggies into noodles. It makes the noodles just the right shape to be like spaghetti. Add a dollop of raw pesto to that and trust me, because I didn’t believe it either, you have such creamy, tender, yummy goodness that you will have no choice but to moan like Meg Ryan in When Harry met Sally.
Zucchini Noodles with Avocado and Basil Pesto
Noodles
1 zucchini makes about one bowl of noodles
Pesto sauce
½ cup almonds
½ cup walnuts
handful basil (about ½ cup)
clove garlic
pinch salt
pepper to taste
1/3 avocado (keep separate for now)
Make your noodles using a spirooli or food processor.
Blend sauce ingredients (not avocado) to desired texture, I like it quite crunchy but you can make it as smooth and creamy as you like.
I don’t mix the avocado in yet. Any leftover pesto will keep in the fridge for days or you can freeze it.
Take about a tablespoon (serves 1) of the pesto mix, mash in avocado with a fork, mix through noodles.
Add extra basil and pesto on top and enjoy!
onehundredpercentraw 