For the past couple of months as I’ve been adjusting to life without dairy or grains, I have not experimented with all the fabulous raw recipes out there. I guess I wanted to just keep it really simple at first, besides the fact that I love salads so much that I really can eat 2 every day and never get bored with them.

I watch all the wonderful videos and read all the excellent blogs, and I know that so many of you long-term raw foodists have come up with amazing looking raw dishes that mimic old standbys like pasta, meatballs, bread, crackers, cookies, desserts, etc. Many of those use a dehydrator, and I’m not totally comfortable with jumping into that yet. Part of me wonders if it can really be healthy to suck all that good water content out of naturally healthy foods, but yet another part of me is drooling over being able to eat crackers and cookies.

But when I look at the addictions I have been able to overcome in these past several weeks, I can’t help but be nervous about indulging in these altered goodies. Because to me it does seem like an indulgence. A treat to have occasionally but certainly not to consume as one’s daily diet. So I have put the dehydrator recipes on the back burner for now (the back tray? ha ha). Maybe one day when I am more entrenched in this raw food lifestyle and I have released all the weight I want, then I will revisit the dehydrator foods.

In the meantime, there is a raw food concept that is compelling enough for me to try right now.  Noodles!  Noodles made of zucchini are the most common but you can find other vegetables used as well. Even if you don’t have a handy little spiral slicer gadget, you can use a simple vegetable peeler to create long strands of fettucine-type noodles.

For the raw sauce, there are tons of recipes for tomato based sauces. I just so happened to have some lovely raw pine nuts and a nice bunch of basil that I had just picked up from my local produce stand. Voila, my pesto was born!

Zucchini "Noodles" with Pesto

Pesto

1/4 cup raw pine nuts, soaked for an hour or so
handful of fresh basil (I don’t know how else to measure fresh herbs!)
a few leaves of baby spinach
1 clove of minced garlic
salt
1-2 T olive oil
squeeze of lemon juice

I whirled this in my mini hand blender since it was such a small amount. I would use a food processor for a larger batch. It was an experiment and I didn’t want to waste my pine nuts if it turned out horrible. But much to my pleasure it was delicious! I didn’t even miss the parmesan cheese that traditionally goes in pesto.

My daughter and I gobbled this up, so I guess this made enough for 2 servings. The picture shows one serving. Definitely a keeper! I think this is cause to buy a spiralizer as my next gadget.