Lemon garlic spinach pesto with zucchini angel hair pasta

For those of you living grain-free, on the SCD, or just trying to cut out carbs/pasta today’s recipe will fit the bill. I introduce to you another raw food creation! Since spring has not yet fully arrived here in Toronto I can’t grow my own basil to make fresh pesto every week so I decided to substitute that with spinach! I sometimes find I buy way more than I plan to eat so why not make a pesto from it!

The trick to this recipe is the pasta! You have two options here. The first is to go out and buy a handy spiral slicer for $30 CAD.  These are available at most health food places or you can order one online at most retailers! They are great and will definitely come in handy!  The second option which I have done before is to Julienne the zucchini very finely. This will take longer but at the end of the day you will have zucchini noodles you can use! The rest of this recipe is as simple as tossing your pesto with the noodles, garnishing with some fresh cherry tomatoes and cilantro and serve!

enjoy!

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PDF —————>Lemon Garlic Spinach Pesto with Zucchini Angel Hair Pasta<—————PDF

Butternut squash and carrot mash

This past week a friend and I decided to experiment with some new fun and what turned out to be delicious foods. The first of them is today’s post, a wonderful and creamy butternut squash and carrot mash. As a kid I remember my sister eating mounds and mounds of mashed potatoes, my parents couldn’t keep up with her. Personally, I was never that big of a fan, and now, well i can’t eat them! This creation however is not only healthy, but is safe for anyone on gluten-free diets, SCD or just want to find an alternative to potatoes to please the masses! This is also the kind of dish you can make in advance of any meal and heat on the stove when its time to serve. Give it a try, and let me know what you think of it!!

Just remember in terms of prep time you will need about an hour for the squash to bake in the oven to soften it enough to make it a mash. If you are unsure of how to bake the squash refer to this picture below as reference! Make sure you scoop out the seeds before baking!!

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PDF ———————-> Butternut squash and carrot mash <———————PDF

South Indian Lentil Cakes

This weekend I have been cooking up a whole new array of tasty treats. One dish, today’s, was supposed to be an experiment but actually turned out extremely well! Not only is this tasty, but a simple dish to add a little indian flavour to any meal.  Traditionally this dish is served with raita, a spiced yogurt dip/sauce. In my opinion these lentil cakes taste great as is!

One trick to making these cakes is using a muffin wrapper! I used a silicone based muffin wrap and packed the bottom with the mix. After ensuring it was well patted down to about 1/2 inch thickness, i easily flipped the patty onto the skillet for frying. I would recommend only doing 2-3 a time in your skillet to avoid crowding and possibly breaking apart the cakes by accident.

**For those on SCD double up on the lentils and leave out the mung beans to ensure it stays true to your diet**

Enjoy!

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PDF ———————–> South Indian Lentil Cakes <————————-PDF

Red Pepper & Mango Salad

For this weeks post I decided to go for a simple staple that is great to add to your culinary range and is sure to impress anyone you have for dinner. For years, mango salad has been one of my favourite side dishes. Not only does it taste fresh, but is has a nice bite, compliments of fresh cilantro. For those of you often confused, for the record, cilantro is the same thing as coriander. Not sure what cilantro looks like fresh? Well here is a picture for your notes!

Cilantro is easy to grow and a great addition to your garden this spring! Over the next few weeks I’m going to share some great SCD legal/gluten/grain free recipes that use fresh cilantro, so none of it goes to waste! It can even be used in breakfast dishes like kookoo sabzi ! For those looking to make a more Thai style mango salad I will share in a few weeks a great SCD legal sauce and spices you can add to this to spice things up (no pun intended).

The only difficult part of this recipe is actually cutting the mango. In my books its is one of the more difficult/annoying fruits to cut. So here is a quick chart compliments of mango.org on how to easily cut your ripe mango! My only tip is that if you find your mango is too ripe, ensure you cut out or don’t use the brown sections in your salad, it will throw off the colours and make it look a little less than appetizing even though the taste may still be the same!

Give this a try! Enjoy!

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PDF ——————->Red Pepper Mango Salad<—————–PDF