Zucchini Noodles

My favorite vegan/raw food restaurant does a mean zucchini noodle dish that I'm super into.  So, when I dumpstered 5 zucchini and didn't feel like making zucchini bread or ratatouille, I decided to try making zucchini noodles for the first time instead.

<u>Ingredients:</u>
- 4 zucchini
- flavorful sauce of some sort (I used my pesto cream sauce recipe, but substituted peanuts and a little sesame oil in my pesto instead of cashews, since that's what I had)

Zucchini noodles are painfully easy to make.  There are cool contraptions you can buy to make it look more like pasta, but you basically just need a vegetable peeler and some time to accomplish a more fettuccine-type noodle.  You peel the skin off, then just keep peeling around the whole zucchini longways until you get to the seeds at the core.  At that point, you can cut the core up for a salad, stir fry, or ratatouille so you're using the vegetable in more ways than one!

Once you've made the zucchini noodles according to the directions above, you can make up some kind of sauce (I made a pesto cream sauce to keep it in the raw food category.  If you're vegan, you could just do pesto plus a tomato or something).  It's a pretty flavorful dish.

One thing to mention, though - the zucchini noodles lose their moisture if you salt them and leave them in the fridge over time, so try to eat them all up after one or two meals or they can get kind of gross...

Items not dumpstered or donated: cream, sesame oil, garlic

Pesto Grilled Cheese Flatbread

So, I know I've already given you my home made pesto recipe, but here's one more thing you can do with it - add it to sandwiches for a punch of flavor and wetness (you can also mix it with mayonnaise to make a pesto aioli for cold sandwiches like turkey or cucumber).

PESTO GRILLED CHEESE FLATBREAD



Ingredients:
- Home made or store bought pesto
- Bread (I used some old frozen naan I had dumpstered, but you can really use anything)
- Some kind of cheese (I used a mild white cheddar)
- Tomato, onion, whatever (optional)

I'm sure you all know how to make grilled cheese. If you don't, I'm sure the internet can teach you. Basically, just make a grilled or baked cheese sandwich with pesto, adding your favorite fixin's.

The pesto takes what would normally be kind of a boring lunch and adds more flavor and nutrients. Plus, you can really put anything on a grilled cheese - fresh tomatoes, prosciutto, onions, sprouts - you name it! You can get pretty creative and elevate your grilled cheese sandwiches without too much extra effort.

My pesto grilled cheese pictured here includes raw mild white cheddar, naan, red onions, and a little pepper to taste. I stuck everything in the toaster oven for about 5 minutes until the cheese was melted (not my usual m.o. for making grilled cheese, but it was faster than usual. Also, this method made the onions aromatic and a littttle soft, but they still retained their texture and crunch). I really liked the naan instead of thick bread, because it made the sandwich function like a flatbread, which is ALSO more exciting than a plain old grilled cheese lunch!

Unrelated: I just made some dank pesto cheesy sunnyside up eggs for breakfast this morning! Just one more use for pesto!

Ingredients not dumpstered or donated: pepper

Spinach-Basil-Cashew Pesto

Homemade pesto is a great way to make almost-wilted, almost-sad spinach (or basil) much happier and live longer. It's the route to take when your spinach is starting to wilt and isn't that appetizing in a salad anymore, but still usable for cooking. Pine nuts are traditional fare for pesto sauce, but I dumpster cashews more often (and they still taste great). You can also add parmesan cheese for protein.

SPINACH-BASIL-CASHEW PESTO
(vegan or vegetarian, depending on parmesan usage)

Ingredients:
- 1 bunch or bag of spinach
- 3 tbsp fresh garlic
- 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup raw, whole cashews
- 1/4-1/2 cup nutritional yeast (optional)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 bunch basil
- Salt & pepper to taste
- Parmesan cheese (optional)

Using a food processor, finely chop cashews & olive oil.
Add garlic and process again.
Add spinach, basil, & lemon juice (and nutritional yeast and parmesan cheese verrryyy slowly).
Add salt & pepper to taste.
Chill and serve.
In a tupperware, this pesto will last at least a month (without parmesan), oftentimes more.

So, what can you use pesto for?

Pesto tastes great with chicken, salmon, shrimp, tomatoes (bruschetta!), grilled cheese, eggs, and pasta. It's also great to use as a twist on pizza sauce.

Here's how I used my batch of pesto:

CHIK PATTY & PASTA WITH PESTO PARMESEAN CREAM SAUCE
(absolutely not vegan, but very much vegetarian)

Ingredients:
- 1 chik patty (highly recommended)/chicken breast/light protein thing meat whatever
- 2-3 cups pesto
- 1-2 cups grated Parmesan cheese (if it's not in the pesto already)
- 1-2 cups heavy whipping cream
- A butt-ton of nutmeg
- Salt & pepper to taste
- 1 sprig fresh basil
- A few cups of whatever pasta you have on hand (I used farfalle)

Throw your pesto in a pan at medium-low heat.
As the oil in the pesto starts to melt a bit, stir in cream slowly, mixing constantly with a wooden spoon.
Sprinkle in Parmesan, constantly stirring (this is important, or else burning is imminent).
Everything should start to melt together - don't let the sauce bubble much or the milk will scald.
Sprinkle in a liberal amount of nutmeg (super awesome tip: nutmeg makes all cream sauces taste better. The French know what's up).
Keep adding milk and cheese at medium heat until everything tastes balanced and yummy and the sauce reduces a bit (about 15-20 min).
(Adding the cream looks pretty. Who says food isn't aesthetic?)

Simultaneously cook up your pasta and chik patty/preferred protein.

Mix it all up, shred some fresh basil on top, and enjoy! This is a super-easy recipe that looks impressive.
A word of advice: Microwaving pesto is a bad idea. It separates the oil from everything else and makes your dish all oily and kinda gross. It still tastes good, but the texture is a little weird.

Items not dumpstered or donated: Olive oil, garlic, spices, basil (from window garden), nutritional yeast