Nut Free Pea Pesto & Super Green Pasta Bowl

I'm sort of at a loss for words in regards to today's recipe. I could probably eat it by the spoonfuls in a quiet corner every day for at least a month while warding off any sort of Drusilla or Edward Cullen type characters...(for the record, Buffy beats Twilight any day in my book).

There's a lot of wonderful Pea Pesto recipes in the food blogosphere, and yesterday I realized that I hadn't done my own variation yet. I mean, peas are definitely at the top of my favorite foods list, so I knew it'd be an easy feat yielding nothing shy of tasty results. If you're living in a part of the world where green peas aren't fresh or in season yet you have options! Check it out...

About the Peas

Snow Peas make a great substitute for snap/spring peas. 

Green Beans, also called haricots verts - yep, you can use them instead of peas too. The taste might be slightly different and not as sweet, but it won't disappoint.

Frozen peas, while they aren't truly "raw" they're a wonderful substitute for those of you (and me too) who aren't always wrapped up in living an uber strict raw food lifestyle.

One more awesome thing about this pesto...
Today you get to see it in a super-power-packed bowl of green pasta, but I totally recommend getting creative and using it as a dip, spread, or whatever else you can think of. Just make it!

AtV Pea Pesto

Makes roughly two cups

2 c Peas

1 tsp mined/pressed Garlic (or more to your tasting preference)

1 Tbsp unpasteurized Mellow While Miso Paste

2 Tbsp Lemon Juice

Place all of the above into your food processor and puree for one minute. Transfer to an air tight container and store in your fridge.

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Super Green Bowl of Pasta

Serves anywhere from 2 to 4 people depending on whether or not it's a side serving or main course

Step 1.

Green Ingredients

In a large bowl combine the following:

2 c Broccoli florets

3 c packed chopped Spinach Leaves 

3 c packed chopped Tuscan Kale leaves

1 c chopped Red Bell Pepper

1 tsp Onion powder

1/2 tsp Garlic Granules

1/2 tsp Lemon Pepper

1/4 tsp Salt

Mix together all of the above until the veggies have been evenly coated with the dry spices

Drizzle over your Veggies:

3 Tbsp Grape seed Oil

1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

Mix again until the Oil and Lemon Juice have evenly coated the veggies

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Step 2

Warming/Wilting your Veggies

Choose from one of the following Raw Food Warming Methods noted Here.

Proceed to warm/wilt your veggies for 30 minutes to 1 hour. 

Get ready because your kitchen is going to smell amazing!

Step 3.

Finishing your veggie pasta bowl

While your veggies are warming the only thing you'll need to do is the following:

Don't have a Veggie Spiral Slicer? Click here to see how to make Zucchini pasta by hand, with a veggie peeler.

 3 cups of Zucchini Pasta

1 cup (or more if you'd like) AtV Pea Pesto

Mix the Zucchini Pasta and Pesto together to the pesto evenly coats the pasta

If you're wondering why my Pea Pesto went from bright pretty green to a more muted (not so bright) green color it's because I made the pesto a day earlier - and sadly the pretty bright green color fades as it sits in the refrigerator. But don't worry -- the flavors are still bright and gorgeous!

When your veggies from Step 2 have finished warming/wilting add them to the bowl with your Zucchini Pasta...

Top your gorgeous healthy bowl of veggies with a one of the following: 

Nut Free Cheese Powders (click for more)

Thank you again to those of you who've been asking for more nut free recipes! I'm having a wonderful time playing around with new recipe concepts, and I'll be branching into nut free desserts in the very near future. 

Hope you're all having a wonderful Friday, and happy weekend!

xoxo,

Sarahfaé - AtV

Nut Free Raw Food Recipe Teaser...

Hi everyone!

It's been a little bit of a weird week for me - so big apologies for the scattered posts. I desperately need to get back to my schedule.

I hope you don't mind me teasing you with a recipe that'll be up tomorrow (I promise!!). Since you've all been so wonderful and encouraging regarding more nut free recipes that's just what you're gonna get. I'm really excited about this one, because it's my dinner tonight...

Super power mega Green Pasta with Garlicky Pea Pesto and Nut free Parm ... recipe coming up on AtV tomorrow -- photo courtesy of instagram (follow me at @addicted_to_veggies)

See you tomorrow for a much needed and overdue plate of tastiness!

xoxo,

Sarahfaé - AtV

Romesco Bisque

In lieu of no recipe yesterday (oops!) I wanted to make up for it today with something super simple and incredibly tasty. Thankfully I had the ingredients ready and waiting in my fridge, and making this soup took literally just a few minutes...

AtV Romesco Bisque

Serves 2 people

Step 1. 

Ingredients

1 c Romesco Sauce

1 c AtV Sour Cream

1/2 c water

Salt to taste

Step 2.

Making and Warming your Soup

In a sauce pan or bowl whisk together all of your ingredients evenly

Raw Vegan Warming Method for Sauce

Transfer your Soup to a Saucepan

 Warm  soup on your stove top at a very low heat while whisking continuously

Use a thermometer to monitor the heat...

When soup is warmed to 110/112F it's ready to be eaten!

Try This:

Add fresh chopped avocado, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper and dried crimini mushrooms to your soup. 

It also makes a great creamy/tangy/spicy dressing for a salad too.

Sorry to post and run - but I'll be back to my regular recipe schedule tomorrow. 

Hugs and happy eating to you all!

xoxo,

Sarahfaé - AtV

Summer Romesco Sauce (Nut Free!)

This is one of those "happy accident" recipes. When I was putting all of the ingredients together in my head I suddenly remembered seeing something similar in my Mediterranean Fresh Cook book. Without really knowing what I was doing, I ended up with all of the ingredients for a gorgeous Romesco sauce, sans the almonds. But you know what? This sauce doesn't need the almonds - it's so rich and decadent without them that you won't even miss the additional calories. However, if you want to add more thickness and depth to this gorgeous sauce then check out the recipes notes for my suggestions. 

Important Recipe Notes

About the Tomatoes:

In this recipe I used baby heirloom tomatoes. If you don't have those available then I recommend cherry or plum -- basically the sweetest tomatoes you can find. This recipe needs the tangy-sweet kick of those little juicy gems. 

If you're using regular Tomatoes I would suggest adding (along with the recipe ingredients): 

3 Tbsp of Date Paste and 2 Tbsp of Apple Cider Vinegar -- this will help make up for the lack of tang and sweetness.

About the "Nut Free::

Traditional Romesco sauce calls for blanched Almonds. Even though this is a nut free recipe, you can certainly add almonds if you'd like: 

Soak 1/4 to 1/2 cup of Almonds for 8 hours.

When they're done soaking remove the skins (they should just slip right off) .

Add the almonds to your food processor with the rest of the ingredients and process for an additional 3 to 4 minutes until your almonds have pureed and your sauce is thick and creamy.

About the Spice:

Traditionally Romesco is a fairly spicy sauce. I've toned down the spice a bit in my recipe, but you always have the option to add more spice, or even omit it completely. I do recommend trying the recipe as is, just because you don't know what you're missing out on!

Nut-free Romesco Sauce

Yields roughly 1.5 cups Sauce

Step 1.

Ingredients

2 cups sliced Baby Heirloom Tomatoes (see recipe notes for other options)

1/2 c sliced/chopped Red Bell Pepper

1/4 c chopped Scallion

1/4 c Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

1 Tbsp minced/pressed Garlic

1 Tbsp Paprika (Spanish Smoked Paprika is even better)

1 tsp Onion powder

1/2 tsp Ancho Chili powder //or// Cayenne powder

1/2 tsp Cracked Black Pepper

1/2 tsp Salt (or to taste)

Place all of the above ingredients into your food processor and puree for 1 minute.

Transfer your sauce to an air tight container and place in the fridge to chill for a half hour or more. This allows the flavors in the sauce to build and merry.

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Want to enjoy this as a warm sauce? Well you certainly can!

Raw Vegan Warming Method for Sauce

Transfer your Sauce to a Saucepan

 Warm  soup on your stove top at a very low heat while whisking continuously

Use a thermometer to monitor the heat...

The soup seen in this photo is Cream of Tomato(click here to see full recipe)

When soup is warmed to 110/112F it's ready to be eaten!

Enjoy your Sauce over a big bed of zucchini pasta...

Make sure to keep this recipe on file -- I might end up turning it into a soup in the very near future.

Happy Friday!

xoxo,

Sarahfaé - AtV

Zucchini Quiche with Baby Heirloom Tomatoes

I'm a total Food Network (and Top Chef) junky. I've actually learned a lot of technique from watching shows like Chopped and Iron Chef America - and more than once I've stolen ideas for recipes you see here. Last week this gorgeous recipe for Heirloom Tomato Pie showed up in my facebook feed and the first thing that came to mind was: "Ohhh, I wanna make that!" The more I thought about it my mind kept taking me to the idea of a quiche, and since I've never actually made a raw vegan quiche before the timing seemed perfect!

Important Notes About This Recipe

There's a number of things that I am loving about this recipe; it's nut-free (yay!), low fat (if you make a thin crust), and BEST of all...you can make the entire quiche by hand! That's right, no fancy kitchen appliances needed. The only specific tools you need are the following:

For the Crust:
A nut or Spice Grinder (I actually use a coffee grinder and it works great)

For the Quiche:
A medium or fine toothed grater
The lager toothed graters won't give you the right "creamy" zucchini consistency, so I can't stress enough the importance of this detail. Pureeing your zucchini won't work either.

About the Zucchini: 
After you've grated the zucchini you will need to squeeze away any excess liquid. Do this by simply grabbing a handful of the shredded zucchini and squeezing above your kitchen sink. This is very important, otherwise the excess liquid will lengthen the drying time of your quiche filling. 

Alrighty...let's make a quiche!

Zucchini Quiche with Baby Heirloom Tomatoes

Makes One 5.5'' round Quiche - Serves 2 to 3 people

Step 1.

Quiche Filling Ingredients

1 c peeled and finely *shredded Zucchini (see below for more details)

2 tsp Nutritional Yeast

1 tsp Creamy Mustard of your choosing

1 tsp Date Paste

1 tsp Onion powder

1/4 to 1/2 tsp minced Garlic (to your own tasting preference)

1/4 tsp Kelp powder/granules

2 Tbsp Oilive Oil //or// Grape seed oil

1/4 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Black Pepper

Mix together all of the above ingredients

Note the size of the shred - you don't want your zucchini to be shredded any larger than this.

Shredded Zucchini after being "squeezed"

Additional Quiche Ingredients:
These are my suggestions - you can use different ingredients if you wish, just keep the measurements the same, and depending on the moisture content in your veggies the drying time may need to be longer.

1/4 c thinly chopped Red Bell Pepper

1/4 c chopped Scallion //or// Leeks

Mix together evenly

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Step 2

Drying your Quiche Filling and Baby Heirloom Tomatoes 

• Choose from one of the following Raw Food Warming Methods noted Here.
• Proceed to evenly spread out both your Tomatoes and Quiche filling - keeping them separate
• Dry for 2 hours total
• Quiche Filling will be finished after 2 hours
• The Tomatoes may need to dry for an additional 1 to 2 hours (it's up to you, really)

Finished Quiche filling will be slightly wilted down with a wonderful creamy texture 

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Step 3.

Nut Free Quiche Crust

Make a half batch of the following 

(If you'd rather make a full batch then you can freeze half of it, or make a double batch of the quiche filling and have two tarts!):

Nut Free Tart Crust (click for recipe)

• Once you've made your crust, before drying it proceed to shape it into a 5.5'' shell 
• I free-handed mine pretty fast -- not too bad for a first try! 
• Using the Raw Food Warming Method noted in Step 2, proceed to dry your crust for 2 hours
• You can do this at the same time you're drying the Quiche filling and tomatoes (but keep all ingredients separate)
• When all of your ingredients have finished drying it's time to assemble!

Apply your tomatoes and garnish with a bit of fresh Oregano or Basil and cracked Black Pepper

Not only does this make a yummy dinner, it's also a wonderful breakfast! I'll be having a slice tomorrow morning with a little bit of fresh avocado on the top. Yum!

Let me know if you want to see more nut free main courses like this one - I'm having fun experimenting!

xoxo,

Sarahfaé - AtV