Zucchini Noodle Salad With Sun-Dried Tomato Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing

Today my spiralizer arrived and I was so excited I had to use it right away! Let me tell you, if you are wanting to make zucchini noodles this is the way to go. It makes it so easy to zip out some noodles and it is easy to clean up. And so much less dangerous for your fingers than a mandolin. The great thing is you can get one for about $35. Mine is going to get a lot of use! You can make noodles from squash, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, it also slices and makes curly fries. It's well worth the money! I received mine as a birthday present and I'm pretty happy about that!

Dressing:
4 sun-dried tomatoes
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp real maple syrup
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 tbsp water

Salad:
2-3 handfuls of mixed baby greens
1 handful of match stick carrots
2 sprigs of cilantro
2-3 sliced mushrooms
1 half slice of red onion
1 half of a zucchini

For the dressing, simply add all the ingredients into a blender and blend till emulsified. Alternately you can mince the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and mix by hand in a shaker or in a bowl. If the zucchini is organic leave the skin on and just wash it well, if it's not I wash then peel it. Then run the zucchini through the spiralizer or julienne it with a mandolin for nice long spaghetti type noodles. Put your salad ingredients onto a plate putting your noodles on top and drizzle with the dressing. This serves one large salad or two small dinner salads. The dressing will be enough for two large salads. I always store mine in a glass container in the fridge for my next salad. It will keep for a few days.

Balsamic vinaigrette is one of my favorite dressingss, but can easily make this salad and use any kind of dressing. I also think a creamy dill dressing would be amazing on it!

Guilt & Gluten-Free Spaghetti With Zucchini Noodles

This is a pretty basic recipe, but instead of regular, empty calorie, carb filled noodles, I substitue for much healthier zucchini noodles! I still do noodles once in a while, but I do organic, whole grain, gluten free pasta like quinoa or brown rice. They are higher in nutrition than regular wheat pastas, but still are heavy in carbs. Zucchini noodles remove the guilt and are delicious, especially since I love spaghetti!

Now, I am not a calorie counter, I eat for nutrition, but here is a comparison of calories- 1 cup of zucchini has about 30 calories, 1 cup of regular spaghetti noodles is about 220. That is a HUGE difference. Zucchini also has a lot of health benefits, it is very high in vitamin A, B6, and C, it is also high in potassium, fiber and water. I can eat about one medium zucchini cut into noodles with sauce. I think it is fairly safe to plan for about 1 zucchini per person for the average eater when planning a larger meal.

Sauce:
1 jar of your favorite organic spaghetti sauce
10 button mushrooms sliced
3-4 garlic cloves minced
1/2 of a medium onion diced
1 tsp dried basil or a couple sprigs of fresh
1 tbsp coconut, safflower or other high heat tolerant oil

Noodles:
3-4 medium to large zucchini's

Add the oil, onion & garlic to the pan and saute on medium heat until tender. Add mushrooms and saute for about 5-10 minutes until they start to reduce in size. (a healthy tip I learned from The Detoxonista's blog.. instead of adding more oil to the pan if you need more liquid, add a splash of water instead to keep the amount of oil lower) Add sauce and simmer on low for 15-20 minutes to blend flavors and reduce the liquid. Prepare your zucchini noodles while sauce is simmering. You can make your noodles with a spiralizer or julienne them with a mandolin which is what I do currently, or you can cut them all by hand if you don't have either. If you love pasta I highly recommend investing in a spiralizer, you can get one from Amazon for about $35.

When your sauce is ready, toss in the noodles and fresh basil, mix gently. I find tongs to be the best way to manipulate the zucchini pasta. Let this simmer for 5-10 minutes, as soon as the pasta is warm it is ready! You can cook it longer if you like, but I prefer mine crisp and not mushy so I only let it cook long enough to get warm and soften the noodles. They should be "al dente". Zucchini contains a lot of water, so you'll want to keep that in mind anytime you cook them. Cooking them less helps, and making sure your sauces are thicker also helps. They are tasty, pliable like regular pasta, you can spin them around your fork, sauces cling to them nicely, and they are a bit crispy. Caution! You just might get addicted to these once you try them. I know I am, I am so happy I discovered them in my searches for healthy recipes!

I try to eat a least 75-80% raw. Some days I eat fully raw, and other days I will have one meal cooked. After a lot of research on both raw and cooked foods I feel that there are benefits to both. A lot of nutrients are depleted with cooking, but then there are some that are increased, like lycopene in tomatoes, calcium absorption from spinach, the anti-oxidants in broccoli to name a few. I feel to keep things in balance, both cooked and raw are beneficial. Raw has so much to offer with the enzymes, so it's really important to eat plenty of raw fruits and veggies!