March is destined to be a good month in my book.  Of course, my month/Monday began with a yummy dinner.

Raw Zucchini Spaghetti

Spiraliaze (or  use a hand peeler) the zucchini to make spaghetti.  I have found that a quarter to a half of a zucchini is a suitable serving for one.  Of course, go to town and it the entire thing if you want!

Raw Meatlessballs

• 1/2 cup soaked walnuts
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 clove minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley
• dash salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor (or Magic Bullet) and blend.  Hand-roll the pate into four balls.

Not-Really-Sauce Sauce

I was lazy and didn’t want to make an actually sauce.  Instead, I added all of the usual red sauce ingredients on top of the noodles without doing any mixing.  All of the flavors were there, just un-blended.   The sauce included: 1 chopped vine ripe tomato, 2 chopped sun dried tomatoes, Italian seasoning, dash cayenne pepper, drizzle of evoo, and salt and pepper.

Yes, you noticed correctly.  I know what you are thinking.  Those meatlessballs are a little weird looking.  And if by weird you mean, gray.  Yup, I was surprised too.  If I think back to the color wheel we learned about in art class in the 2nd grade, combining tan (walnuts) and green (parsley) apparently makes gray.

PS I Googled grey vs gray and learned that grey became the established British spelling in the 20th century and it is but a minor variant in American English. Canadians tend to prefer grey.

Canada can have the gold.  But we can have the gray.

I based this recipe off of Gena’s Raw Zucchini Alfredo with Basil and Cherry Tomato recipe.  I would have followed this recipe precisely but I was lacking a lot of the ingredients.  Hello, fresh basil season, where the heck are you?  Instead, I adapted her recipe with the food in my kitchen.

Raw Zucchini Spirals with Cashew Alfredo Sauce — 1 serving

The Pasta

1/2 spiralized zucchini noodles (use a peeler if you don’t have a spiralizer)
1/2 carrot, shredded
1/2 celery stalk, chopped
4 grape tomatoes, halved
3 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

Alfredo Sauce

1/2 cup cashews
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon Bragg Liquid Amino
1/2 teaspoon agave syrup
Celtic Sea Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Spiralize or peel the zucchini and add the carrots, celery, grape tomatoes, and sun-dried tomatoes to a bowl.   Toss all of the pasta ingredients and set aside.  For the sauce, I combined all of the sauce ingredients in my Vita-Mix and blended until creamy.  I forgot to soak the cashews ahead of time but it was ok.  If you are using a food processor or a Magic Bullet, be sure to soak the cashews a few hours to make the blending process easier.  Once the sauce is blended, toss with the spiralized zucchini and vegetables.

And there you have, a simple (this recipes takes less than 15 minutes to prepare), creamy, and fabulous meal.

I really loved the sun-dried tomatoes in the pasta.  I am so glad Gena included that in her recipe because I would have never thought to do that.  It was fun to have a different texture thrown in the mix.  It is so nice to have such great recipes floating around in the foodie/blog world that inspire me to make things that I would have never thought of making.

Happy Friday!

The goods:

• romaine lettuce
• kale
• avocado
• cherry tomatoes
• carrots
• dulse
• Celtic sea salt
• raw agave syrup
• lemon juice
• awesomeness

I just can’t stop eating this salad.  Seriously amazing.  I am totally in love.

In Oprah news, she did a great show today with Michael Pollan (Food Rules) and Alicia Silverstone (Clueless) about eating wholesome, real food.  Oprah was moved to do the show after she watched Food, Inc. — a movie I have been wanting to see since it came out this summer.  Oprah has teamed with Amazon to offer Food, Inc. at a discount for $9.99 until this Friday at midnight.  I will be ordering mine tomorrow.  Check it out here.

Obama time!

I wasn’t in a salad mood today and decided to make guacamole wraps with kale.  I had only two kale leaves but it looks like I am eating a small shrub.

My guacamole included 5 fewer ingredients than the current tally of Tiger’s alleged mistresses (according to Perez):

• 1 whole avocado
• 2 teaspoons of lemon juice
• 1 clove of minced garlic
• 1/8 cup of diced red bell pepper
• 3 quartered grape tomatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon of red curry paste
• dash of Celtic sea salt
• dash of fresh ground black pepper

The red curry paste was the secret ingredient in this guacamole.  It added a little fire but not too much.  It also gave the guacamole a nice red tint.

Check your calendars, we have 23 days until New Year’s! The other day I found a list of resolutions from last year and I was thrilled to see that I had accomplished everything except for 1 (and I am working on that now).  It was nice to see that even the goals that I had forgot I set were still accomplished.  Do you make resolutions?  Have you made any for 2010?

I was addicted to making guacamole a few weeks ago.  I am now back into that addiction.

I decided to make lettuce wraps with guacamole, bell peppers and grape tomatoes for lunch today.

My guacamole included:

• 1 avocado
• grape tomatoes cut in half
• chopped red bell pepper
• chopped orange bell pepper
• chopped yellow bell pepper
• tablespoon lemon juice
• minced garlic
• salt and pepper

Refreshing.

This morning I packed my suitcases to go to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving week.  I am driving to Charlotte as soon as I leave work tomorrow.  The drive should be 6.5 hours but there was a rock slide in the Smokey Mountains and the detour will add another hour of driving time (major bummer!).  I downloaded new music last night and I plan to get a book on CD at the library tonight.  Any book suggestions? The last time I drove home I listened to Augusten Burroughs’ memoirs on CD.  Good music, lack of traffic, and nice weather are necessities on long car trips.  I have made this drive a bunch of times but I start to go a little car-crazy at hour 4 — I debate turning back but I have already driven half way and I have to go on.  I plan to pack a green juice, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds as snacks on for the long drive.  How do you prepare for long car trips?

I made a foul the other day shopping in Kroger and I didn’t realize it until I made dinner tonight.  For some reason, I picked up a butternut squash and not a spaghetti squash.

I can’t really blame Kroger for this error because I am at fault.  Spaghetti squash is an oval shape, yellowish, and has directions that say Spaghetti Squash.  Butternut squash is orange in color and looks like a messed up bowling pin.  How did I confuse the two?  Really, I don’t know.  I have good eye sight (thank to contacts) and practically spend my life in grocery stores; I should have realized what I was doing.   Oh well, I prepared the butternut squash in the same way that I wanted to prepare my spaghetti squash.  And guess what?  It was still awesome.

I cut the butternut squash in half, scooped out the seeds, and baked for 30 minutes at 350 degrees on a baking tray.  For the veggie topping, I chopped half of a zucchini and halved 2 handuls of cherry tomatoes.  I sauteed the zucchini and tomato in a little extra virgin olive oil, dried basil flakes, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

I swoon.

Ooohh stream …

Yeah, so I mixed up spahgetti squash and butternut sqaush.  It was a rookie miskate, I know.  But it was still good and that is all that matters. 

Have you ever bought the wrong food in the store but used it anyway?  Was it amazing? Or not-so-amazing?