pasta

veggiepasta2 I love this recipe!

This is one of my favorite go to meals and my husband’s too. I make it once a week with an assortment of veggies. It’s perfect for when the fridge is starting to look empty and all that’s there is a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Mixing veggies together makes it so much more fun and colorful. Pick whatever veggies you like best and get creative, just as if you were painting a picture.

The pasta we use is Tolerant red lentil pasta because it tastes and looks like the real deal, unlike some gluten free pastas that are too sticky or lack flavor. As an added bonus, it is made purely from lentils and is very high in protein. Another amazing gluten free and paleo (grain free) pasta is Cappello’s fettuccine made with almond flour and eggs.

Fair warning, both options are much more expensive than traditional pasta, but remember you are paying for pure, organic, nutrient dense ingredients. As a result, there’s no belly bloat, sluggishness or cravings for more after eating these noodles. Besides we only use a little bit of pasta and smother it with lots of veggies 🙂

With this recipe, no tomato sauce is needed. In fact it’s preferred not to use it with this recipe. Instead, we toss our pasta with Body Bio magic oil before smothering it with the sautéed veggies (only use this oil raw do not cook with it). It’s so good, it needs a spoon to lap it all up!

veggiepasta

Veggie Smothered Pasta

1 cup chopped zucchini
1 cup chopped broccoli florets
1/2 cup chopped leeks or onion
2 cups raw spinach
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
2 tablespoons pine nuts
2 tablespoons coconut or olive oil

Place oil in a large sauté or stir fry pan. Stir in onion and cook until tender and translucent. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon. Add broccoli and zucchini. Cook over medium high heat until tender and beginning to brown. Remove and set aside. Add more oil as needed and stir in mushrooms and garlic. Once mushrooms are beginning to brown, add the spinach and cook until wilted. Stir all vegetables together before placing over pasta. Sprinkle with pine nuts.

Serves 2

Some people love leftovers, some hate them.

I was always one of those kids that turned my nose up at the sight of leftovers. My aversion to them even crept into adulthood. It was mostly a texture and smell issue for me, and I believe this sensory response accompanied some of the toxic issues I was having in my gut.

Fortunately, with gut healing and the commitment to a clean healthy lifestyle, I can now embrace the ease of leftovers and enjoy finishing a meal the following day without gagging or forcing it down. Of course there is also the added benefit of not wasting and the sustainable repurposing of the food which is a rewarding accomplishment in and of itself.

This recipe is the perfect example.

Growing up, my mom used to make turkey tetrazzini with the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. With a family of seven to feed, this was a perfect recipe for a post holiday dinner. She’d mix the turkey with a béchamel white sauce, cheese and noodles then bake it in the oven. The sauce definitely did a good job of dressing up the leftover dry turkey, but I still didn’t totally dig it.

This Thanksgiving, we had a ton of leftover turkey and green beans. While staring at the leftovers, I remembered mom’s turkey tetrazzini. Along with the memory of the food, my mind wandered to all my fond memories of our time together as a family in Vermont where we spent the holidays. So when I thought of the turkey tetrazzini, I felt all warm and fuzzy.

Inspired by my walk down memory lane, I decided to reinvent her recipe using dairy free and gluten free ingredients. I searched for a paleo recipe and found one that I adopted. I used red lentil pasta and the leftover green beans, some sautéed onion and a coconut milk cream sauce, no cheese. The result was actually quite tasty. Cappello’s linguine would be awesome for this recipe, but I didn’t have any on hand or zucchini noodles would also work well.

The sauce was slightly runny and settled on the bottom of the pan while the casserole cooked. So next time, I plan to mix all the ingredients before putting in the baking pan and perhaps may add a few more tablespoons of flour to help thicken the sauce (the recipe below has been adjusted for that).

The day after it was even better – the leftover leftovers, ha!

Even if you don’t make this until next thanksgiving its worth the wait 🙂

Paleo Turkey Tettrazini

2 pounds of leftover turkey meat
4 cups of cooked grain free pasta
1 pound steamed green beans
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced in to thin moons
1 tablespoon olive or coconut oil

For the Sauce:
2 cans full fat coconut milk
Juice of one lemon, about 3 tablespoons juice
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 organic eggs
1 1/4 cups coconut butter
1 clove garlic, peeled
4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup arrowroot powder (I’ve adjusted this amount from my initial recipe)

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the box. Once done, drain and set aside. In a large sauté pan, cook the onion with the oil until tender and translucent.

While the onion is cooking, make the sauce. Place all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a large baking pan. In a large bowl mix the noodles, vegetables and sauce. Pour into the baking pan and bake for 30 minutes or until heated through and the sauce is bubbly. May need to stir a few times during cooking to keep sauce from settling to the bottom and drying out the top.