Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Raw Fettuccine

I have a friend who is a vegetarian... I know imagine that, she won't eat animals. She used to frequent a restaurant on the north side of Chicago that specialized in all raw food. I asked her once how the steaks were and she was gracious enough not to tell me that I am a dork. The owner has some long story about enzymes in all natural food that are ruined by heating them up blah blah blah. I never managed to listen to him ramble on, but the idea intrigued me a bit. Here is my venture into raw vegetarian food.

The Sauce was easy it is this is enough for 2 or 3:
3 Plumb Tomatoes diced
1 Clove of Garlic minced
5 big Fresh Basil Leaves Chopped
Splash of Olive Oil
Splash of Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper

Maybe a raw food purist would take issue with the Olive Oil and Balsamic, but he can shut up I am the one eating this. I took about a third of this and put it into the food chopper to get that saucy consistency and added it back to the rest.

The "Noodles" are finely cut Zucchini. I used to have a Mandolin that I used to cut stuff like this, the first day that I opened the package I cut myself across four knuckles while putting it together (yeah chef, good job) It was so sharp. About a year ago I threw it away it had dulled to the point of not being safe anymore. I thought I would be able pick one up in the next few days but turns out they weren't for sale everywhere like I thought they would be. Anyway to make the Fettuccine here I had to improvise a little I used the vegetable peeler to make long strips of zucchini then cut those into Fettuccine like strips. No ingredient list here... one Zucchini per adult, just cut into strips then noodlie things. What is pictured is one Zucchini cut like I described and about 1/2 of the sauce in the recipe

So you ask, "in the end how does it taste?" Well it is good, the flavors and textures really pop when you eat it very fresh and bright... but to me it is hard to consider a plate fill of raw vegetables (no matter how cool they look) anything other than a salad. Mind you a good salad but after my Raw Fettuccine I had the Spaghetti with Meat Sauce that Kris made while I was working on this.

6 comments:

  1. This is definitely a good recipe for SMAM, but I think I'd be starving an hour later.

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  2. I was dying... I really like the protein with my meal or at least a lot of carbs. I try to understand, but this will never be more than a side dish for me.

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  3. Let's call it a salad then. It's an awesome, multi-textured salad without a leaf of ice burg in sight.

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  4. Listen Bryan, trust me. This is a salad. Not to say it doesn't look great and fresh and the zucchini is a super sub for lettuce, but a salad it is.

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  5. I'm totally agreeing with TKW- tasty but still hungry

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