Autumn is well and truly here in Perth. Seemingly overnight we’ve had crisp mornings and lots of rain. It’s been too rainy/dark to go for my runs, so to keep warm I’ve been going to Piloxing classes a few times a week. My cravings for comfort food go through the roof when it’s cold and if I were to act on them, they could wreck all my efforts of exercise.
So whenever I feel like a bowl of pasta, I make this Zucchini Spaghetti instead. There’s a gazillion zucchini spaghetti raw recipes around with tomato based sauces, but I prefer it with a fresh basil and mint pesto. If you don’t mind heating your food, this dish tastes pretty amazing lightly warmed through, too.
RAW VEGAN ZUCCHINI PESTO SPAGHETTI
1.5 ZUCCHINIS 3 CUPS FRESH BASIL 1 CLOVE OF GARLIC 1 TABLESPOON LEMON JUICE 3/4 CUP PINENUTS 1 TEASPOON SEA SALT
1/3 CUP EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
FRESH LEMON, LIME & MINT & EXTRA PINENUTS FOR GARNISH
Spiralise the zucchini with a Spiraliser (I recommend this one and this one). If you don’t have a spiraliser, make fettucine style zucchini instead by peeling long strips with a regular vegetable peeler. Place them in a colander and after five minutes gently squeeze the excess water from them and place aside in a bowl. Don’t skip this step, or your zucchini spaghetti will be watery and that will ruin your day. In a food processor, pulse the remaining ingredients until combined (leave a little texture in there) and stir through the zucchini. Garnish with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime, pinenuts and fresh mint leaves.
This is the juice I make again and again and again. Most mornings, in fact. I grab the ingredients on autopilot out of the fridge, stick them through Oscar The Juicer, pour it into a jar and head off to work.
Good stuff in this juice:
Apples hit you up with potassium, phosphorus, calcium, manganese, magnesium, iron and zinc (and makes all the green stuff in the juice more palatable).
Celery is alkalizing and provides vitamins A and K. It also contains a heap of sodium which is what makes it taste kind of salty. The good news is that natural plant sodium is soluble and organic and is essential for your body. Organic, or live salt lets your body use the other nutrients you’re consuming. It works like this: all the cells in our body are constantly bathed in a salt solution. If this gets out of balance, we get dehydrated. So celery juice is a winner in summer for staying hydrated. Nature’s sports drink, minus the bright blue colouring.
Lemon juice is full of vitamin C and boosts your immunity.
Kale looks after your blood and bones – it delivers masses of vitamins K, A and C.
Mint is sweet and cooling and provides a little vitamin A and manganese.
DAILY GREEN JUICE
2 GREEN APPLES 1/2 LEMON, PEELED 2 LEAVES KALE, WITH STALKS 2 STALKS CELERY, WITH LEAVES
2-3 SPRINGS OF FRESH MINT
Run all ingredients through a juicer, stir or shake before drinking. It’s good on ice, too.
Make it into something else: If you blend this juice with 1/2 an avocado, it makes a yummy raw soup for a light summer meal or snack.
Fresh fennel is a veggie that you can eat from base to leaves, or perhaps I should say: from bulb to fronds. In this salad, I’ve used the bulb very thinly sliced with crisp green apple and celery and then the fronds combined with mint to intensify the licorice-ish flavour. Raw fennel has hardly any calories (hooray) and delivers you a large hit of potassium (more than milk or broccoli) and also calcium. This salad is best made just before you’re wanting to eat it, and the ingredients should be refrigerated first, if possible, so that it is crisp and crunchy.
APPLE, FENNEL & WALNUT SALAD
2 CUPS VERY THINLY SLICED FENNEL (USE A MANDOLIN OR A FOOD PROCESSOR) 2 STALKS CELERY, VERY THINLY SLICED (USE A MANDOLIN OR A FOOD PROCESSOR) 1 CRISP GREEN APPLE, VERY THINLY SLICED (USE A MANDOLIN OR A FOOD PROCESSOR) 1/2 CUP WALNUTS 1 TABLESPOON FRESH MINT LEAVES
1 TABLESPOON FRESH FENNEL FRONTS
DRESSING
1 TABLESPOON EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL 2 TEASPOONS FRESH LEMON JUICE
SMALL PINCH OF FLAKED SEA SALT
Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix gently to combine. To make the dressing, shake or stir ingredients together and pour over the salad just before serving.
I’m back after a loooong blogging break. My excuse is the one we all make: I’ve been busy.
Busy with what? Well, I’ve moved out of my design studio space. I’d been there for five years, so it was emotional moving on, even though in the grand scheme of things it was the right thing to do.
I’ve been in touch with the lovely Annette from Pure Glow Cleanse about her guest posting some recipes. Pure Glow Cleanse are Perth’s first cold-pressed juice cleanse delivery and I can’t wait to try it out when they launch. More on them soon.
I’ve also been contracting making online stuff at Naked Specs and Stonebarn, as well as continuing with some of my freelance work, so it’s been late nights and a lot of green juice in between, but I’m feeling more and more in balance as the warmer weather approaches.
And with the warmer weather comes summery fruit – my favourites! This salad features sweet strawberries paired with spicy ginger and bitter raddichio leaves to balance out the flavours.
STRAWBERRY GINGER SALAD
3 CUPS SHREDDED RADICCHIO LEAVES 10 STRAWBERRIES, HULLED AND SLICED 1/2 AVOCADO, CHOPPED HANDFUL OF FRESH MINT LEAVES
15 PECAN NUTS, CHOPPED ROUGHLY
DRESSING
1 TEASPOON FRESH GRATED GINGER 1 TABLESPOON OLIVE OIL 1 DESSERTSPOON FRESH LEMON JUICE 1 TEASPOON AGAVE NECTAR OR HONEY
1/2 TEASPOON SEA SALT
To make the dressing, shake all ingredients together in a jar until well combined. Set aside. Mix all salad ingredients together in a separate bowl, and stir through the dressing just before serving.