Thanks for getting so excited about yesterday’s juice post! Before I tell you all about the fantastic raw “beet ball” recipe I recently made from recycled juice pulp and almond pulp, I wanted to pause to answer a couple of questions that popped up about juicing. If I don’t answer your particular question in this list, feel free to ask away in the comments section!

Isn’t it true that juicing makes your blood sugar “spike,” because you’re not eating the juice with enough fiber and protein to slow sugar absorption into your bloodstream?

It’s true that fruit juices raise blood sugar, which is why they may not be suitable for diabetes or people who are sensitive to sugar. But for individuals who respond normally to fruits and sweeter vegetables, juicing in moderation should not be a problem, especially if juice is consumed in proximity to a properly balanced meal. I often drink juice *with* a meal, or I drink it as a snack not long before another meal, which means that the sugar is digested more slowly than it would be if I were to use juice as a meal replacement, which I do not recommend. This way, the many nutritional benefits are delivered without too much blood sugar variance.

Additionally, be aware that you can create many tasty, all vegetable blends, and that you can adjust the sweetness of your juices as you wish! I often do straight greens with only a little carrot. On days when I need more simple sugar as fuel (right before a workout, for example), I do more fruit. Balance is key.

Why can’t I just blend vegetables up in a Vita-Mix to make juice? I don’t have a juicer.

For more detail on this question, I could refer you back to this post, straight up from the CR archives! But in short, I’ll say: the point of juicing is to flood your body with nutrients without activating digestion through the absorption of fiber. This is not to say that fiber is bad; fiber is great! But to ingest the amount of vitamins and minerals one has access to in a juice, one would have to eat or blend a lot of vegetables. For people with sensitive digestive systems, juicing is a relief: it allows for maximum vegetable consumption with minimal irritation from enormous amounts of dietary fiber.

I do not personally subscribe to the popular theory that digestion is a horrible, taxing process from which we must intermittently offer our bodies period of “rest” in the form of fasting or juicing. I believe our digestive systems are meant to process ample food, several times daily. But I do have moments when I want to perk up with a ton of vitamins and some simple sugars, and I’m not in the mood to digest a giant bowl o’ vegetable, or to fill up completely (for example, if I want a really nutrient dense but light afternoon snack in preparation for a full dinner). This is where juicing can be really helpful.

It’s also a tool to simply increase the nutritional power of your lunch or dinner without adding too much heft!

Blending is great, too: it allows for rich nutrition with the addition of fiber, which helps to create satiety and is generally good for bowel and heart health. But it’s a different creature altogether from juicing; more filling, more of a “meal” experience, and not always as likely to provide quite the same amount of vitamins with as little fuss.

Now, if you want to create regular fruit and vegetable juices with your Vitamix, you can most certainly blend them and then strain them, reserving the pulp (as I always do) for recipes. Check out Sarah’s helpful tutorial! This is a perfectly acceptable means of juicing without a juicer!

What kind of juicer do you recommend?

I use a Breville Juice Fountain Plus. It’s hardly the fanciest juicer, but it’s very decent, it was a good price for me, it has stood the test of time, and the pulp is "wet” enough that I can use it in many fun recipes (super dry pulp can be impossible to work with).

Hope this is helpful!

So: almond pulp. I promised you guys a recipe on Sunday, and now I’m here to deliver. Most of you requested cookies, and I’m sorry to say that I’m not sharing a recipe for those: rather, this is a savory dinner/lunch recipe. But I promise I’ll come up with some incredible cookie recipes, too!

These raw, vegan “beet” balls use flax and almond pulp as a base. The addition of beet pulp, left over (of course) from my juice, makes this meal rich in ingenious conservation skills: juicing is not necessarily the most cost-effective health habit, so I like to counter the volume of vegetables that go in my juicer by always using the pulp in bread, crackers, burgers, and more. Ditto for homemade almond milk, when I make it. Nothing in my kitchen goes to waste.

Can this recipe be modified for non-juicer, non-dehydrator, non-blender homes? It’s a little tough, but you can experiment with grated beets, almond meal, and an oven. I know I’ve been throwing you guys a ton of “appliance-heavy” recipes lately, and I’m sorry for that: it’s just that pre-med/blogger life really means planning ahead, and my dehydrator helps me to preserve things for later enjoyment. Tomorrow’s recipe will be gloriously appliance free!!!!

Raw, Vegan Spaghetti and Beet Balls (vegan, raw, gluten free, soy free)

Makes about 10

1 1/4 cup beet pulp OR grated beet, squeezed well to remove moisture
3/4 cup almond pulp, as dry as possible
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp flax meal
2 tsp Italian seasoning or oregano
1 tbsp dried basil or 2 tbsp pesto
1/4 – 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
Black pepper to taste

1 large zucchini

1 recipe of my raw marinara sauce

1) Mix all ingredients by hand or in a food processor. Add as much water as necessary to get a sticky, firm dough.

2) Shape mixture into 10-12 “balls.” Dehydrate at 115 degrees for about 6 hours, rolling around for even dehydration. You may also bake these at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

3) Spiralize 1 zucchini, or use a grater to grate the zucchini, and top it with half the beet balls. Add a heap of raw marinara sauce, and dig in!

Hope you enjoy these delicious, vegan “balls.” I suspect I’ll get to work on a cooked version for you guys soon, too. And keep in mind that they make great, savory snacks!

Anyway, it’s back to studying for me! Don’t forget to tune into tonight’s VegNews Twitter Chat with me and other plant-based health professionals! 9 pm EST. Be there.

xo

Glad everyone liked the looks of my curried carrot and red grape slaw!!!

This week, temperatures plummeted for the first time since I’ve lived in DC. In a span of only a few hours, it seemed, we’d gone from swampy heat to the distinctive chill of autumn. Fall is my favorite season, and so I welcome this change , but even I was taken aback by its suddenness, which left me with a couple of critical questions:

• Should I sleep with my window open or shut?
• Should I break out my heavier fall coat now, or should I layer my lighter jacket with a sweater?
• Is it too chilly for flats?

Most importantly,

• What am I in the mood to eat?

I’m not really a seasonal eater: my food cravings are all over the place, and I’m as likely to go through a high raw phase in the dead of winter as I am to crave hot soup in the summertime. For whatever reason, the temperatures and textures my body seems to need have very little to do with the seasons. That said, I love to use seasonal produce, and autumn is the season of winter squash. I devour pumpkin, acorn, kabocha squash, and butternut squash from September onward, with relish. I’ll eat them in the summer, sure, but for whatever reason they don’t seem to have the same allure when it’s piping hot outside.

A few nights ago, I was struck by one of my first annual butternut squash cravings. The problem was that I was equally eager for something raw and cooling. I took a moment to think about what was in my fridge, and after some consideration I decided to throw together the following high-raw dinner. It was creamy, savory, and totally satisfying, and it met my simultaneous cravings for autumnal and summer produce nicely. I even went out of my comfort zone and made my typical zucchini alfredo sauce a little garlicky: it worked beautifully, and I surprised myself by loving every bit of the garlicky taste. If you’re not into garlic, simply omit or half the amount in the recipe.

Zucchini Pasta with Roasted Butternut Squash and Cream Sauce (high raw, vegan, gluten free)

Serves 1

1 zucchini, spiralized
1 heaping cup butternut squash, cubed, drizzled lightly with olive oil, dusted with sea salt and pepper, and roasted at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

For the sauce:

1 ¼ cup cashews, soaked for a few hours
¾ cup water
2 small cloves garlic
1 tsp agave
1/3 cup lemon juice
¾ tsp sea salt
1 tsp miso

1) Toss zucchini and squash together.

2) To make the sauce, put the soaked cashews in your Vita-Mix or food processor along with the agave, garlic, lemon juice, sea salt, miso, and 1/3 cup water. Blend until it looks thick and creamy. With the motor running (in either the processor or the Vita), drizzle more water in until the sauce is totally smooth (if you’re using a food processor, you’ll have to stop and scrape sides occasionally) and the consistency you want.

3) Pour enough sauce over your zucchini and butternut squash to coat them generously. Serve, topped with some nutritional yeast if you like!

This dinner got served with a giant salad of massaged kale and black lentils. The following night, I used up the sauce and butternut squash by making another helping, and I added chickpeas to that bowl. Absolutely delicious.

This is a perfect example of the kind of easy, versatile, and satisfying raw dinner I love. You could modify this in countless ways by adding different kinds of beans, nuts, seeds (hemp seeds would be fantastic!) or some seared tempeh. You could also substitute any winter squash or yams for the butternut here. No matter what, this is a delectable and simple way to enjoy a high raw meal that’s touched by the flavors and textures of autumnal food.

Before I go, I wanted to share a link to an article that my friend Sarah–whom you may remember from her wonderful green recovery joint post–wrote last night about the difficulties of being a raw foods lover in a community of people who are slightly more orthodox and extreme about raw foodism than she is (or wants to be). Given that

a) many people in the raw foods community do have histories of disorderd eating habits
b) dietary guidelines prescribed by 100% raw foodists can feel restrictive, and
c) restriction tends to be triggering for people with ED histories

we have a formula for potential conflict. Raw foodism (and plant-based diet in general) often speaks powerfully to men and women with ED histories; it’s a frustrating irony that it can also evoke or trigger the same black or white, rule-oriented thinking that got us into trouble in the first place. Some might claim that people with ED pasts are simply not well suited to raw foodism. But I’d like to believe that there’s another answer out there, which is for those same people to approach the diet without orthodoxy. Enjoy yourself, maintain an inclusive diet, and find a way of enjoying raw food that feels organic and reasonable to you.

This is my advice, and it’s the essence of Sarah’s honest, thoughtful, and respectful post. Sarah works in the heart of the raw world, and I think it’s very brave of her to assert her own food needs and preferences in spite of the fact that she so obviously reveres her raw food mentors. Check it out if you have some reading time, and share your thoughts!

Till tomorrow,

xo

Happy Thursday! As of today, I have exactly two weeks of my crazy summer Chem II class remaining. Given that I haven’t slept more than 4-5 hours nightly on a weeknight since class started, I’m excited to realize that I’m more than halfway done. Phew. I’ve never needed a lot of sleep (and I think that good diet improves sleep quality, which means you don’t need quite as much of it), but even my limits are being pushed here!

I don’t think I need to tell you all that I’m a hemp fanatic (no stoner jokes, please—that’s not what I mean!). Hemp is one of the most nutritionally rich foods around. A single serving provides us with:

• Complete protein (all twenty amino acids, including the nine essential amino acids)
• Essential fatty acids (EFA’s)
• An ideal 3:1 ratio of Omega-6 Linoleic Acid and Omega-3 Linolenic Acid
• Zinc
• Phosphorus
• Magnesium

Impressive, no? Hemp protein powder is an ideal addition to smoothies, or even to my quick version of hemp hummus, and hemp seeds are delicious sprinkled on pasta, salads, soups, or pretty much anything you want. I have a bastion of hemp recipes on my blog, but they include:

My Cheesy Red Pepper and Hemp Dip (personal favorite!!!)

My amazing hemp hummus (pictured here in the KG wrap):

Hempesan:

My creamy hemp milk:

And my nutrition powerhouse chia seed power pudding:

A lot of these recipes are more on the sweet side than the savory, so today, I thought I would share a more savory application for the miracle that is hemp. It’s my hemp pesto, which I originally made for my high raw, vegan manicotti with Andrea. It was so tasty that I promptly made it again, and I intend to keep doing that till the stores of fresh summer basil have run dry!

Hemp Pesto (raw, vegan, gluten and soy free)

Yields approx 1 1/3 cup

1 cup shelled hemp seeds
2 tightly packed cups of fresh basil
1/2 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced (2 cloves if you’re a garlic fan)
2/3 cup water
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1) Place hemp seeds in a food processor fitted with the S blade. Grind till they’re powdery.

2) Add basil and pulse to combine well.

3) Add salt, pepper, lemon, garlic, and pulse again.

4) With the motor running, add water in a thin stream, as if you were making a nut pate. Stop once in a while to scrape the bowl. Keep adding water until the pesto is still quite thick, but not pasty.

5) Keep motor running, and finish the pesto by drizzling in the 2 tbsp EVOO. This isn’t necessary, but it’ll give the pesto a more traditional mouthfeel and flavor!

Two nights ago, I served this wonderful pesto over a bowl of zucchini pasta with sundried tomatoes, edamame, and cherry tomatoes from the Georgetown farmer’s market:

Absolutely delicious, high raw dinner!

This all goes to show that a small modification in a traditional recipe can multiply its nutrition in really significant ways. Using pine nuts in pesto is just fine, but hemp seeds truly have more to offer in terms of essential nutrients and protein. Putting them in pesto is an easy and efficient way to offer yourself a few more benefits from your meal, without sacrificing taste or turning something you like into an unpleasant form of “health food.” Enjoy!!

xo

I don’t really think of myself as a cook who comes up with a lot of wild flavor combinations, but I suppose there are quite a few things I’ve put together wackily: avocados and chocolate, hempseeds and chickpeas, tahini and banana, to name a few. Today’s recipe—peanut butter and tomato sauce—may be the weirdest thing I’ve done in the kitchen lately, but it’s also one of the best: a rich, smooth, salty-sweet sauce that works beautifully over pasta, in sandwiches, or over roasted or grilled summer veggies. Sure, the premise is odd—tomatoes and peanut butter—but really, the taste isn’t. It tastes like a typical raw marinara, but with a salty kick.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I served this sauce over a bed of zucchini pasta, which I made, for the record, with my simple little mandolin slicer. I’m waiting for a new spiralizer, which means I’m back to basics when it comes to raw pasta construction. Just as I noted when the Vitamix got sick, it’s always good to be reminded of the fact that a high raw lifestyle can take hold without a ton of fancy equipment: a few simple and economical appliances are key, but they don’t beg for much else!

Peanut Butter and Tomato Sauce (high raw, vegan, gluten free)

Makes  1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups

1 1/2 cup chopped, regular or cherry tomatoes
3 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp soy sauce, tamari, or nama shoyu
1 tbsp agave or maple syrup
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender till very smooth. If you’re working with a regular blender, you may want to try using canned, stewed tomatoes that don’t have many seeds in place of fresh ones.

Serve as you like!

It will, I promise, be love at first bite:

Truly a delicious sauce. I may never go back to regular raw marinara again.

Obviously you can use almond butter or any other nut butter in this recipe: the thing about the peanut butter is that it has a fairly unmistakable saltiness and less of a neutral flavor than other nut butters. I use organic peanut butter moderately, rather than shunning it altogether the way some raw foodists do (usually on the claim that peanuts are moldy and contain aflatoxins), but I do confine my use limited to recipes and dishes where the PB taste is really vital. So using real peanut butter in this sauce feels sensible to me, whereas dumping it on oatmeal or into a smoothie—foods in which almond butter tastes just as good to me—doesn’t.

Whatever your feelings on peanuts are, know that this recipe, while enhanced by using PB, isn’t totally reliant on it. I think lots of nut butters would be good here; the point is to use a nut butter of choice for creaminess and taste. Experiment, and see how you feel!

Hobbit House Update:

Things are coming together nicely here at my little hobbit house, which has currently earned hero status in my book for being so naturally cool that even on the hottest day of summer (today), I barely need my AC. Hooray for subterranean living!

I’ve still got some boxes out, but crucial strides have been made. The pantry is full:

Don’t you love the painted pantry door?

Some books are unpacked:

My table and chairs are clean and ready to study at:

And some of my favorite artwork is up. As you may know, my mom is a painter (and an art teacher), and having her pieces near me is a very sacred slice of home. Here’s one that always feels reminiscent of Matisse to me:

I’ve also hung up the Decemberists concert poster that my friend Tom had framed and gave to me:

My Godmother is an artist who paints directly on wood. When I was younger, she and I would joke about how well suited I was to the monastic life—quiet, solitary, and studious. This was her tribute to that fantasy:

And finally, the New Yorker cartoon that Chloe gave me years and years ago, when we were roommates. The sketch is of an urbane woman purchasing flowers, and the caption reads, “Do you have any that thrive on cigarette smoke and near total darkness?”

My friend Eric always claimed it made him think immediately of me. I may not be a smoker any more, but I sort of agree.

And with that, it’s time to grace this new little home with some dinner. See you all tomorrow—and get thee to some PB and tomato sauce!

xo

So then this happened:

Yeah.

The motor’s slightly injured, too.

Seriously? Don’t ask me how I managed to destroy several parts of an appliance that is, for all intents and purposes, indestructible. I’m just good like that. Or, I’m sleep deprived. Le sigh.

While I wait for my new Vita-parts to arrive, I’m brought back to the year 2007, when I was a new high raw foodist, flushed with first love, and without any of the fancy appliances that raw veterans call their own. Many of my readers tell me that they find it hard to be raw because they don’t have dehydrators, and they don’t have Vita-Mixes. I totally understand, but I like to remind them that I was high raw for over a year before I had a high speed blender, and over two before I got my dehydrator (which I rarely use). I ate a lot of salads, a lot of nut pates, a lot of soups that would turn out nicely in a normal blender, and a lot of fruit smoothies that didn’t require high speed blending.

And you know what? I felt terrific.

While I count the minutes till the Vita is up and running again, I’m actually feeling sort of grateful for this reminder of what raw foods have always meant to be: simplicity. Basics. A return to food in its most stripped down form. I love raw foodism for giving me the capacity to appreciate food for what it is, and not only for how I can improve it. As a cook, I do love to experience the creativity of the cooking process, and I believe that learning how to enhance the taste of food is one of our biggest civilized achievements. But eating raw has always been a lovely reminder that, even without our artistry, food is beautiful.

The following was one of my first raw “entrees,” and I did it without a Vitamix or a spiralizer. I used a $15 dollar mandolin to cut my zucchini into matchsticks, and I made the pesto in my food processor (OK, full confession: while I can definitely survive life without a Vita-Mix when I have to, I’d be fairly lost without the food processor. I use it almost every day, and have for years). It was love at first bite, and tonight, as I celebrated the early stirrings of summer flavors, I was transported back to those first few months of raw infatuation.

Raw Zucchini Pasta with Pistachio Pesto (serves 1)

For the pasta:

2 small zucchini, spiralized or sliced into matchsticks
4 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
8 cherry tomatoes, halved

For the pesto: (makes 3/4 cup, or 4 servings)

1 cup shelled pistachio nuts
2 cups tightly packed basil leaves
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt (or more to taste)
Black pepper to taste

1) Grind pistachios in a food processor for about thirty seconds, using the S blade. Add basil and pulse to combine.

2) Run the motor and drizzle the olive oil in in a thin stream. Next, drizzle in the lemon.

3) Check consistency; I love my pesto super thick, but if you like it more traditionally runny, add a bit more oil.

4) Add salt and pepper to taste.

5) To assemble the pasta, rub about 3 tbsp of the pesto into your zucchini. Toss in the tomatoes, and serve topped with nooch if you like.

No matter how long we’ve been eating raw, vegan, or any other special way, it’s great to have moments that remind us why we fell in love with our eating style in the first place. I’m sorry I butchered my Vita (sorry, Vita), but I’m not so sorry to re-connect with my raw food roots again.

Readers, rest assured that a beautiful raw supper can await you without a $500 appliance. Earth gives us taste and pleasure in abundance, and our own creative flair can do nearly all the rest (she says as she pats her food processor lovingly.)

See you back here tomorrow!

xo

Great responses to yesterday’s post! I’ve been meaning to talk about fasting for a while, and was hoping it would spark a discussion as thoughtful as that one.

One thing that kept coming up in the comments was the idea of lightness, and how raw foodism often serves to preserve that feeling while all the while providing nourishment. I think this is true, of course: it’s the reason so many former ED sufferers find themselves attracted to eating raw (I include myself here). And in many ways, I think this is a very good thing indeed. Because it offers satiety without feelings of intense fullness or weightiness, raw foodism (or semi-raw foodism) does seem to have the power to free many people from lifetimes of food guilt and disordered eating.

It’s also true that anyone who’s ever pursued feelings of lightness in the extreme has to proceed with caution when getting interested in raw foods. I’ve seen many women move from healthy raw diets to raw diets with less and less density, ending up at greens and smoothies, and not much else. Raw foodism becomes yet another slippery slope down which they slide toward starvation. This is why I get so angry when I hear prominent raw foodists extolling the virtues of abstinence, fasting, and emptiness. To enjoy feelings of lightness is one thing; to enjoy feelings of emptiness is another. The distinction might be subtle sometimes, but the onus is on all men and women who explore raw to keep it alive.

If you can find a way to enjoy nutrient dense meals that are nevertheless unlikely to make you feel hot, tired, or hefty, that’s pretty great. Take tonight’s dinner. It was a spin on a raw fooder classic: raw lasagna with zucchini, pesto, cashew cheese, and raw tomato sauce. A famously incredible rendition is my friend Sarma’s leading entree at Pure Food and Wine, and it’s every bit as spectacular as the hype suggests. The thing about raw lasagna is that it’s not always fun to make at home: I’ve done it (using Sarma’s recipe from Raw Food, Real World), and it was awesome, but it involved a lot of moving parts and a lot of delicate slicing of zucchini and tomato.

Tonight, I was craving that very lasagna, and was fortunate enough to have most of what I’d need for it: zucchini, my raw “goat cheese,” made with cashews; leftover red pepper marinara (which had gone in an entree earlier this week that I can’t wait to blog about), and some pesto sauce. What I wasn’t in the mood for was careful layering of anything. So I decided to deconstruct raw zucchini lasagna and turn it into zucchini pasta instead, slathering the dish with marinara, pesto, and cheese. Insta-lasagna, if you will, without any of the fuss. I even opted not to dirty my spiralizer, and gave the zucchini a quick shred on my mandolin. Proof that no one needs a spiralizer to make zucchini pasta at home!

The dish, then, is easy: spiralize or shred one zucchini, and top it with about 1/4 cup of my red pepper marinara sauce. Dot it with a tablespoon or two of cashew cheese (my raw “goat cheese” is great for this) and a drizzle of pesto, if you have it; if you don’t, a few sprigs of basil will work equally well. In a few moments, you’ve got lasagna flavors in a (raw) spaghetti bowl:

So. Totally. Delicious. Check out all of the yummy sauces:

I balanced out my meal with a raw kale salad topped with hemp nuts—my favorite!

And dinner was served:

This meal was filling and comforting, but it left me feeling comfortable and energetic enough to focus on work and writing. That, I think, is where raw meals can be so extraordinary. Since leaving my own ED behind, I’ve actually come to savor the feel of a dense and grounding meal in my belly. In fact, I often don’t like to eat all raw over the course of a day because I miss the heft of some whole grains or beans or other cooked foods. But I love raw foods for offering me meals like this—nutrient rich to the extreme, but easy on the body.

How do you feel about eating for groundedness vs. lightness (forgive the simplistic dichotomy, please)? Do you feel that you can enjoy the sensation of lightness after a raw meal without becoming overly fixated on it? How?

Happy weekend!

xo

Happy Tuesday, guys. Hope it wasn’t too hard getting back into the grind. I felt quasi-paralyzed this morning with back-to-work malaise, but now I’m up and running as usual. Miss any recaps of my San Fran trip? Fear not! You can find my recap of lunch at VegNews HQ here., my review of Cafe Gratitude and the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market here, biking to Sausalito here, and my epic dinner at Millennium here. Fun times!

Of course, part of the joy of any trip is the joy of coming home. For me, that joy is inexorably bound to being back in action in my kitchen. This was without a doubt one of the best foodie vacations of my life, but I always miss the opportunity to cook. And there’s no better way to ease into the rigors of the work week than with a soothing, home cooked meal.

When you write a food blog, you become obsessed with recipe creation. Or at least, I have. Each week, I think of all the delicious salads and wraps and dressings I can make for you guys (and for me). This isn’t a burden—I think it’s fun to create these dishes. And of course, recipe development never interferes with my tastes and cravings. You guys get Gena food no matter what. Still, there are plenty of nights when I come home wanting something plain—a big salad with avocado, or kabocha squash and steamed veggies with tahini dressing, or collard wraps with nut pate, or a hummus sammie, or raw soup and veggies—and instead, I opt to make something shiny and new. 90% of the time, I’m glad I did. 10% of the time, I’m sorry I didn’t just go with comfort fare.

Another consequence of my eternal quest for new recipes is that I’m sometimes hesitant to resuscitate old ones. But tonight, after leaving the office on the late side, I had an intense craving for my cashew alfredo, and I know that no other dish would sate me.

I’ve posted this recipe before, but it’s so delicious, I’m going to post it again. For new CR readers who haven’t tried it, this dish is one of my all time favorites (and one of my favorites to make for guests). I can’t recommend it enough—if nothing else, make the sauce! It can be served over veggies, in vegan burritos or tacos, or on regular ‘ole pasta.

Raw Zucchini Alfredo with Basil and Cherry Tomatoes

For the pasta:

Spiralized zucchini noodles (or just use a peeler)
Small chopped carrot
Sugar snap peas, cut in half (about 3/4 cup)
Baby tomatoes, halved (I used lots)
Fresh shredded basil
A small handful of chopped, sun-dried tomatoes

For the sauce:

1 ¼ cup cashews, soaked for a few hours (I just put them under water when I left for work in the morning)
¾ cup water
1 tsp agave
1/3 cup lemon juice
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 tsp miso

1) Spiralize the zucchini into pasta and toss it with the veggies. Tonight, I actually used button mushrooms, carrots, red pepper, and sun-dried tomatoes.

2) To make the sauce, put the soaked cashews in your Vita-Mix or food processor along with the agave, lemon juice, sea salt, miso, and 1/3 cup water. Blend until it looks thick and creamy. With the motor running (in either the processor or the Vita), drizzle more water in until the sauce is totally smooth (if you’re using a food processor, you’ll have to stop and scrape sides occasionally) and the consistency you want.

3) Toss about 1/4 cup of the sauce with a heaping bowl of the veggies…

and voila: you’ve got a creamy, delicious bowl that (at least in my mind) surpasses the original dish. This got served with a halo of arugula salad and a generous sprinkle of nooch—a perfect pairing for an Italian dinner dish.

Sometimes, it’s good to eat what you know you like. Over, and over again

Before I go, I wanted to give you a few tips for returning from vacation. No these, aren’t ways to make the paper stack on your desk any shorter—though I wish I had such insight! They’re kitchen planning tips. See, everyone writes about planning for vacation—which snacks to pack, how to eat on the go, etc. But we very seldom read about a part of travel that’s every bit as important: planning for before and after your trip. The key here is to empty out your fridge as much as you can before you leave, but to make a few durable items that’ll be waiting for you when you return. And as soon as you get back, it’s important to get right back into the kitchen groove—else you’re likely to waste money on store bought food. Here’s how I handle it.

Before Your Trip:

• Finish up all greens and veggies. If there’s a lot on hand and they look ready to spoil, throw them into blended salads.
• Make one salad dressing you know will last till after your return—most vinaigrettes will keep nicely in the fridge.
• If you’ll only be gone for 2-3 days, make a batch of sturdy nut pate (like one made with almonds).
• Have canned beans, pasta, and grains in the house so that you can organize some dinners when you return from your fridge. No one likes coming home to an empty pantry!
• Make a batch of buckwheat crispies.

When You Return:

• Immediately make a few quick staples. Last night, at 10:41 p.m., I whipped up one batch of hummus and one batch of my dilly sunflower cheese (fast becoming a serious favorite of mine).

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• Make a shopping run ASAP. As you know, I often work at night or stay at work late, so for me, this wasn’t an after-work option today. Instead, I hit the health food store near my office on my lunch break. It was inconvenient, and I’d rather have powered through lunch or enjoyed an hour to read the paper, but it was worth it. If I hadn’t gotten adequate groceries, I’d have ended up spending unnecessary money all week long.

See? Planning the start and end of your trip is as significant as planning its duration. Hope these tips are helpful!

Tell me: what are the dishes you return to again and again? And anyone have pre- or post-travel tips to share?

xo

Thank you to everyone who commented on Thursday night’s emotional eating post. It was one of my all time favorite conversations here on the blog, and I hope we’ll find ways to deepen and expand it soon.

Ages ago–like, months and months and months–the very gracious Joanna Steven over at Sirova foods offered to send me some of their sea spaghetti to review on the blog. Joanna, I am SO sorry that it’s taken me so long to deliver my review! Thanks for your patience.

As you can see from the information page, sea spaghetti is ridiculously nutrient rich. It may be the most nutrient dense sea veggie I’ve come into contact with (and this is saying a lot, given that most sea vegetables are exceptionally high in vitamins and minerals). A five gram serving contains 500% of your daily recommended vitamin C, half of your recommended potassium, almost 40% of your daily magnesium, and 30% of your daily calcium. It also gives you 70% of your daily recommended iodine–which, as I’ve noted before, isn’t a micronutrient that most people pay attention to in their diets.

The sea spaghetti, like all sea vegetables, is packaged in a dry form, and one rinses and soaks it for at least fifteen minutes before simmering it. If you wish to eat it raw (which I did), I recommend at least an hour of soak time. After soaking and draining, a double serving (twice the recommended serving size) had plumped up to this:

I was very excited to try the “noodles.” I’d considered numerous sauces and dressings (the Sirova website even offers some suggestions), but finally I settled on the idea of a creamy dill sauce. Dill is one of my favorite herbs–I love how it evokes spring, and it also reminds me of many of the Greek dishes I grew up with–and I’ve hoped to make a creamy pasta sauce with it for a while. My recipe was thus:

Cashew Dill Sauce (yields between 1 and 1 1/2 cups)

1 cup cashews, soaked one hour or more and drained
2 tbsp lemon
1/4 cup dill
1/3-1/2 cup cold water
1/2 tsp salt

Blend all ingredients in a blender till very smooth. NB: I recommend starting with 1/4 cup water, and adding more until you reach a consistency you like. 1/2 cup worked for me, but cashews absorb soaking water with some variability, and sometimes when I use soaked nuts and water both the result is a sauce that’s too thin.

I dressed the sea spaghetti with about 2-3 tablespoons of the sauce, and served it with a big salad of fresh romaine, veggies, EVOO and lemon. It looked and tasted fantastic:

The problem? I was done in two bites. Literally.

Herein lies the rub. The sea spaghetti, in spite of its name, is truly intended as a garnish. I’d already doubled the portion size, and it was still rather tiny. I could certainly have quadrupled the recommended serving, but if I’d done that the sodium count would have started to climb. Sea veggies lose sodium when you soak them, of course, but they’re naturally on the salty side. I’m far from a salt-phobe, but it is summer in NYC, and salty foods don’t sound fun when I’m already parched half the time from the heat. Additionally, I didn’t feel like dumping half or even the whole bag of a specialty ingredient–one I can’t just stock up on at the corner deli–into a single dinner. That didn’t feel very economical to me.

So I finished my little bowl of the very tasty sea spaghetti, returned to my kitchen, and made a bowl of spiralized zucchini and chickpeas. And I deployed some more of my cream sauce on top of that. The result was a dinner far more likely to satisfy this hungry eater:

Served along with my dinner salad and some crackers from Two Moms in the Raw:

It was perfect, and it provided the kind of volume and satiety I need in a meal.

If you’re exploring sea vegetables, then I do recommend the sea spaghetti. It’s terribly healthy, and it’s also tasty. I simply think that the name is misleading: what’s really a garnish is marketed indirectly as a pasta substitute. And while one could certainly use it as such, that would mean using an entire package (or nearly that) at each meal. If I’m going to order a specialty food online and pay for shipping, I tend to prefer it be something voluminous enough to last me quite a few meals. Otherwise, I’ll shop locally. There are a few raw granola brands I like, for instance, that don’t yield more than a few servings. But I buy them once in a while as a special treat, and I’m not dealing with the hassle or cost of shipping.

Bottom line? Look into sea spaghetti pronto if you’re seeking out a sea vegetable that’s mild-tasting, extremely nutrient-dense, and packaged with integrity. But you’d best not think of it as a pasta substitute so much as an add-on to salads, soups, stir fries, or the like.

Oh — and make my cashew dill sauce. It’s really good

Hope you’re staying cool this weekend!

xo

Happy weekend!

Those were some absolutely stellar responses to my post on reconciling veganism with intuitive eating! For those of you who commented early on, go back and check out some of the conversations that emerged in the comments section: really rad stuff.

Yesterday, my sweet friend Angela tweeted me to ask how my name is pronounced — like “Gina” or like “Jenna?” She was making a how-to video on her vegan overnight oats (which you should all watch) and she’d pronounced my name like “Gina.” The back and forth sent off a flurry of tweets from surprised readers; apparantly, most of you have thought of me as a “Gina” all this time! Well, I hate to break it to you, dear readers, but my name is most definitely pronounced like “Jenna.” I know the spelling is misleading–the only other Gena I know who’s pronounced like “Jenna” is Gena Rowlands–but there it is!

For the record, it’s short for Eugenia. Unfortunately. (Thanks, Mom and Dad.)

However you’d like to think of me–as a Gena, a Gina, a Jenna, or even Eugenia–I hope you think of me when you see food like this:

That’s zucchini pasta served over mixed greens with bell pepper, half an avocado, red pepper marinara sauce, and leftover roast kabocha squash. In other words, heaven on a placemat.

I’d forgotten how much I love to mush avocado into my zucchini pasta and marinara sauce–it makes the bowl so much creamier and rich. Yum! I think that signature meals like this are probably easier to remember than my short, yet confusing name, no?

I hope you’re enjoying a great start to the long weekend, friends. This is my last respite before a very busy two months descend, so I’m trying to prepare for the road ahead and get a little R&R in, too. I’ll be back soon–in the meantime, happy Memorial Day weekend!

xo

Hey guys,

GREAT feedback on yesterday’s post! It was so interesting to hear how you all negotiate the zone between eating consciously, but without dogma and fear. Thanks for chiming in!

It’s no great secret that parmigiano-reggiano — or Parmesan, as we like to call it here in the US of A — is one of the world’s most beloved cheeses. No surprise there: it’s salty and unmistakably flavorful, and a little goes a long way. So what do those of us who aren’t into the fromage do to replicate some of that effect? Well, we have a few options. There’s Parma, a product I love: vegan, raw, and out-of-control tasty, it’s sure to add flavor to your dishes. There’s Rawmesan, which I haven’t tried, but looks pretty good, too. There’s Galaxy’s vegan Parmesan, which isn’t raw, but if your body tolerates soy nicely, is a tasty alternative (and great for those who are used to a more traditional Parmesan texture). And for those of us who like to keep things really simple, there’s always a healthy sprinkle of nooch.

Last night, as I threw together some raw pasta leftovers, I noticed that I had only a few tablespoons of nooch left in my pantry. I also noted that I was down to a few tablespoons of hemp nuts. I’d wanted to experiment with a light, yet protein and nutrient rich topping for a while — especially since many of my clients are in search of a parmesan substitute. So I decided to experiment with a hemp based “cheese.” Into my food processor went 3 tbsp of hemp seeds and 3 tbsp of nooch. I pulsed for a few moments, and came up with this:

It was absolutely delicious! And a wonderful offering to my clients who are a little worried about protein intake with a mostly vegan diet: hemp seeds, as we know, are a rich source of complete protein, and nutritional yeast packs eight grams in a tablespoon and a half. I’ll definitely be recommending this topping to clients, and enjoying it’s nutty, salty, and earthy taste myself.

Last night was also a fun exercise in leftover usage. I have a small vat of carrotini dressing at home, and I’ve been wondering how I’ll make a dent before it goes off. Since I also had some spare zucchini, I decided that carrotini noodles would be the order of the day. The recipe? No recipe. Just one spiralized zuke, 1 cup of chopped mixed veggies, and about a quarter cup of carrotini dressing mixed in, like so:

Then, of course, came a small mountain of the hemp-esan:

Along with some steamed broc and cauliflower, it was a tasty and hasty meal:

Two thumbs up! I admit, I’m not a leftover fan: I love variety, and leftovers don’t give me much room for that. But when leftovers offer me new and unexpected ideas for using up a dish I’ve already made (like turning a salad dressing into a “pasta” sauce), well hey, that’s pretty cool.

What about you guys: leftover fans? Not so much? Would love to know! More importantly, let me know what you think of hemp-esan. I’m a fan

Happy hump day, all.

xo