Compromise Pasta: Mostly Raw Zucchini Spaghetti & Raw Rosée Sauce

Sigh.

I’m done! I’ve written my final exam, handed in all my papers, and sorted through my notes, filing away the important lectures for reference….Now what?

Thankfully, I have a few of projects coming in the next couple of weeks to fill up the extra time left from no longer having school work. This coming weekend, I’ll be hosting a baby shower for one of my best friends, and I’m doing the catering! This week is obviously going to involve a lot of cooking and baking, and I’ll be sure to share some of those recipes with you next week

Now, on to this week’s recipe!

A lot of people think healthy eating has to be all or nothing. Not so! Just like in every aspect of life, you do your best. Sometimes you make compromises. I am conscious of trying to include as much raw food in my diet as possible. I am not a raw foodist by any stretch, but I try to include something fresh and raw at every meal. I find, however, that I often crave something cooked, particularly for evening meals. So I make compromises.

This is the way we like to do spaghetti and tomato sauce in our house: The sauce is raw, and we make spaghetti out of raw zucchini, and mix it with some brown rice spaghetti to get some cooked comfort. It’s a great balance. And by the way, this is a great recipe for tricking kids (or husbands) into eating more veggies.

This recipe serves two.

Zucchini Pasta

1 zucchini

1 serving of brown rice spaghetti/linguine, or your pasta of choice

Directions:

-With a mandoline (with the medium julienne attachment), slice zucchini lengthwise. If you don’t have a mandoline (which is actually a pretty useful kitchen tool, and you can get a decent one for $20-40), just use a potato peeler, and shave thin, linguine-like strips off the length of the zucchini.

-Cook brown rice pasta.

-Once brown rice pasta is cooked, toss with zucchini “noodles” to mix.

Raw Rosée Sauce

1 medium (about 200 g) tomato

1/2 red pepper

1/4 cup raw cashews (leave out if you want a plain red sauce)

3 sundried tomato slices

1 clove garlic

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

-Put all ingredients into a high powered blender* and blend until smooth. If you like a chunkier sauce, leave out half of the tomato, and chop it into small pieces. After all the other ingredients are blended, add the chopped tomato half and stir.

*If you don’t have a high powered blender, chop the vegetables, and soak the cashews and sundried tomatoes in water for 4 hours, then drain. Then add all ingredients to a food processor or blender, and process until desired consistency.

Fresh to death!

Take care,

Alex