pumpkin seed & garlic pasta

the possibilities for zucchini pasta are endless; much like salad and smoothie recipes. this time i used pumpkin seeds and garlic for the base of the sauce. of course - the noodles are just zucchini! i topped it off with raisins, chives and spiced almonds.

i usually make 2 small zucchinis for myself. one of the many aspects of raw food i love is the huge amount of food you can eat. veggies and greens are so low calorie it's pretty much impossible to get adequate calories from them alone. so most of my diet ends up being fruit. then of course i have nuts and seeds in my desserts, and sometimes some whole cooked grains to balance out my omega-3's.

as joel fuhrman explains - the higher ratio of nutrient to calorie in a food, the better it is for you! so plants like zucchini, eggplant, any greens, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc. are super low-calorie but super high in nutrient density. they will keep you living long! and holy guacamole (see what i did there?), do they taste good...

zucchini noodles with pumpkin seed & garlic sauce: serves one or two

noodles:
2 small zucchinis 

sauce:
1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1-2 chopped garlic cloves
1/4 cup basil leaves/other fresh herbs
2 tablespoons raisins/dates
as much nut milk or water as needed

to make the noodles, slice the zukes on a mandolin or spiral slicer. set aside in a big bowl. to make the sauce, blend all ingredients until smooth (adding water or nut milk til then). massage the sauce into the noodles until evenly coated. let them rest for a minute to soften and marinate. sprinkle on whatever you like! nom. 

p.s. i go on my juice fast tomorrow! SO EXCITED. 
p.p.s. check this website out if you - like me - are in love with reggae dub. 

RAW PASTA

I love noodles. 

 -

So it makes perfect sense that among desserts, raw pasta is one of my favourite meals. I prefer it made with zucchini, although bell peppers, yams, carrots and other veggies work well too. I also love it with a creamy sauce and a bit of spice.

It's so satisfying, nutrient-dense, low-calorie and RAW, in every sense of the word. 

I don't really use recipes when preparing raw food (as you probably know by now) so for the following recipes, feel ABSOLUTELY FREE to play them with them as you like. There's endless possibilities for sauce ideas - just like for smoothies and salads. The combinations are infinite.

For the pasta: use any wide, fairly long vegetable - zucchini is the perfect example - and slice it on your spiral slicer or mandoline, into noodles. Set aside. Now for the sauce =)

Avocado Hemp Sauce: 

1/2 avocado
1 clove garlic
3 Tb tamari
Water or non-dairy milk, as needed
Salt & pepper, add other spices if you wish
2 Tb hemp seeds

Blend all ingredients except hemp seeds until smooth. See if you like the taste and consistency. Stir in hemp seeds and pour over noodles. Let them sit for a few minutes, then enjoy! I like to add hot sauce and raw marinated veggies.

Garlic Miso Sauce:

2-3 Tb miso
1 clove garlic
2 Tb tamari
1-2 Tb rice vinegar
1-2 Tb almond butter
2 Tb black sesame seeds
Water as needed

Blend all ingredients except sesame seeds until smooth. See if you like the taste and consistency. Stir in sesame seeds and pour over noodles. Let sit for a few minutes then eat it up! This recipe is good with broccoli. 

Spicy Asian-y Sauce: 

1 Tb mustard

1 Tb miso

1 Tb nut butter

2 Tb nutritional yeast

Salt & Pepper 

A few drops of hot sauce

1/8 t cayenne/chili powder

I also add hemp seeds and other spices if I want

Blend all the ingredients until smooth, adding water as need to make it creamy. This time, I added black sesame seeds at the end to add some contrast. Do whatever floats your boat!

Here's some more pictures that have recipes linked to them. Noodles 4 EVER!

pasta with cashew sauce & avocado

Raw pasta is so satisfying. You think you won't be full after eating it, but you always are! Well, maybe I shouldn't use the word "full" in it's conventional way. I mean you feel like you don't need to eat anything else. You feel satisfied! Probably because of all the fiber and water in veggies, plus the delicious sauce on the noodles.

The second easiest way to make raw pasta is on the mandoline, which I've been doing since I went vegan. It works well enough, but it wasn't made for making raw noodles. The EASIEST way to make raw pasta? With a Spirooli. Guess what.

I HAVE ONE NOW! Thanks to my lovely and too-nice vegan, non-biologial sista, Eva.

She is the most compassionate, caring and selfless person I know. So of course, she spends way too much money on other people. Me included. She justified buying this wonderful new toy as a "late Christmas present". Who am I to deny her generosity!? I'll take a free Spirooli any way I can. The first thing I made was pretty simple and also simply delicious.

I made pasta out of carrots, put on some creamy cashew sauce and sliced avocado REALLY thin to add to it. The spiral slicer worked great! I'm gonna be eating so much zucchini pasta from now on.

Sorry, salad.

Carrot Pasta with Creamy Cashew Sauce & Avocado Slices: makes one serving

Sauce:

2 Tb cashew butter

1 t miso

1 Tb tamari

4 Tb water

1 clove garlic

Pinch of salt & pepper

1 Tb nutritional yeast

1 Tb hemp seeds

Pasta & Avocado Slices:

3 carrots, peeled (you could also use zucchini or any other long and wide veggie)

Slightly pre-ripe Avocado

Blend all sauce ingredients - except hemp seeds - together until smooth and creamy. If it's too thick - add more water, tamari or agave. If it's too watery, add more cashew butter or miso. Then stir in hemp seeds.

To make the pasta, slice the carrots on a mandoline, or in your Spirooli! Mix in the sauce. 

To make the avocado slices, cut the avocado in half the non-symmetrical way. This is probably the direction you usually don't cut it in. Then peel off the skin. Now just slice the avocado on your mandoline or with a sharp knife. Plate as you like! I added some hot sauce on the bottom.

In other news: my friend Alex wants me to mention how insanely attractive he is. Now you know.

Also: I'm leaving for Mexico SOON, people! So stoked. I'll post more about it tomorrow.
Until then, enjoy your pasta! Have the best day ever.

raw pad thai - oh yes

*Strictly speaking, the sauce isn't totally raw. But c'mon. What're ya gonna do. If you really want a 100% raw sauce, make a blend of tahini (or other nut butter), chili, tamari, garlic and ginger.

The pasta of course, is just zucchini, sliced on le mandoline. Good news! Soon I will be purchasing one of these puppies from Organic Lives. Yippie! However, if you can only afford a mandoline - no worries! As you can see, they work just as well.

The sauce is a lot like authentic Pad Thai sauce, just healthier and vegan. I had my mom to guide me; she and my dad lived in Thailand for years before they had kids. That's probably a reason I love Thai food so much. It may be my favourite kind of cuisine.

Real Pad Thai is made with rice noodles, a tamarind-, chili- and fish sauce-based sauce, and topped with cilantro, chili paste, peanuts, bean sprouts and perhaps other veggies. Not a lot of meat in Thai food.

That's why they live so long =)

(Plus the daily manual labour, low calorie intake and unprocessed diet of local plants. They have no choice! The healthiest people in developing countries tend to be the middle class and lower-middle class; they can't afford meat, or the ability to sit around all day like us. 

It makes sense. For our ancestors (and still in most developing nations), calories were/are scarce so the fittest got the most. We simply apply that to modern day - the wealthiest get the fanciest (most calorie-dense) food. The only difference now is, in developed countries, calories are the OPPOSITE of scarce. They're in excess. Yet we still hold the ideal that more calories are better. Unfortunately, our brains agree, since they haven't had time to adapt to environmental changes.

Isn't it funny? Once you are rich (i.e. developed regions), you can afford unhealthy processed, animal-based foods, and you can afford to be lazy. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, celiac disease and even diabetes are seen virtually only in Western society. They are diseases of the wealthy. For more info on all this - read The China Study.

I'd rather use our fortune and wealth to my body's advantage. We now have an unprecedented opportunity to be the HEALTHIEST generation of all time. We have every nutritionally excellent food (i.e. raw plants and super foods) at our finger tips, and at very affordable prices. 

I love grocery shopping.  I go to the produce section and pick out my greens and fruit. Kale? A couple dollars a bunch; even cheaper for spinach and lettuce. Fruit? Depending on what it is, about a few dollars a pound. Vegetables? Even cheaper. 

The cheapest foods in the market are the ones that will give you a long, healthy life. 

Then you go past the meat and dairy section, and packaged food; they are all substantially more expensive. Why do we pay MORE for foods that will plague us with pain, discomfort, disease and eventually premature death?

The answer is complicated and simple at the same time. Basically: politics and tradition. I suggest you research this for yourself. It's fascinating, albeit mind-boggling.

My point in all this writing is this - we have been given the special chance to be the healthiest we can possibly be - for cheap. Being healthy costs far less than being sick, and it's way yummier. 

So let's eat to long life, not early death.

Let's eat RAW PAD THAI! (and Dilly Bars for dessert, anyone?) Nom. 

Radical Raw Pad Thai: serves 2, more or less

Sauce: 

1 Tb tamarind paste

1 Tb chopped ginger

1-2 cloves chopped garlic

1-2 Tb agave (or 1-2 dates)

6 Tb tamari

2 Tb chili sauce

3 Tb tomato puree

1 t chili flakes

Juice of 1 lime

1/2 t coriander

1/2 t paprika

Pinch of cayenne and chili, if you want it hotter =) 

Raw oil, if desired

Water, as needed 

Pasta:

1 large zucchini 

Garnish:

Cilantro

Raw jungle peanuts!

Bean sprouts

Hot sauce

Scallions

Marinated mushrooms and broccoli (put some tamari on and warm for an hour in the dehydrator) 

To makes the sauce, put all ingredients in blender and add enough water to just cover them. Blend until smooth, see if you want more heat, or anything else.

To make the pasta, slice the zuc on a mandoline or spiral slicer. Add enough sauce to evenly coat the noodles. Garnish. Eat! The heat of the chili makes this dish perfectly warming on its own - no heating necessary.

In other news: while I enjoyed my Pad Thai, the fam had a sandwich night. We used the best bread in the world, baked yesterday with love at The Common Loaf Bakery in Tofino. My mom also baked some eggplant (which I could not resist, and added to my pasta), tofu, and laid out a bunch of different toppings.

You know it was a successful dinner when my little brother, Daniel, was fighting for the last tomato, sprouts and lettuce!