Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Cucumber 'Noodle" and Carrot Salad/Spaghetti with Joni's Meetballs

I made this up today because I always throw away my cucumbers before they get eaten and I wanted something fresh and healthy. I am never on a diet but I do like to watch what I eat. Sometimes I am better and watching things as I eat them, but there are days where you just want something fresh!!






This Asian-inspired cold salad hit the spot. You may or may not be able to tell from the blog but Asian food is my favourite. I love Chinese, Thai, Japanese sushi, and Korean when I can get it. I made it up with ingredients from the cupboard and I really liked how it turned out. This dressing serves one, but you can easily get 2 good salads out of the vegetables. Adjust to taste. There are no measurements because taste is very different.

*1 cucumber, peeled
*1 carrot, peeled
*1 small dollop of Miso Mayo (1/2-1 tsp)OR light-flavoured chickpea or sweet white miso (1/4-1/2 tsp)
*1 small splash of tamari/soy sauce
a few drops of sesame oil
1 small splash of rice vinegar
black or white sesame seeds for garnish

I do not have a fancy-schmancy raw food noodle maker thing, but I DO have a vegetable peeler, a food processor, and a grater. I assume you have one of these also.

All you do to make the "noodles" is peel with a vegetable peeler, or you can grate/food process shred them. Be sure to rotate the vegetable (if peeling) so you evenly cut from it or it will be hard to peel.
If using the vegetable peeler, just stop when you get to the seeds. OR you can cut the cucumber in 1/2 lengthwise, scoop the seeds out, and try peeling that way.
Lay your cucumber "noodles" on a paper towel to dry or squeeze the heck out of them. You want to not have a lot of water, and cucumbers are wet vegetables.

As you can tell in the picture, I shredded the carrot and made the cucumber into "noodles". You can either shred all of the vegetables, make both into "noodles" or do a combination. Just use what you have. If your food processor has a blade, you can prep your veggies in under 30 seconds.

Whisk all of the dressing ingredients in a very small bowl, pour over carrot/cucumber and garnish.

Spaghetti with Joni's Meetball recipe!

3 comments:

Veggie Cookster said...

What a GREAT use of cucumbers! I'm definitely going to try it! :)

Anonymous said...

that looks awesome. the cucumber noodles turned out great from your photos. i can't believe you are not a raw foodist with a sense of elitism. you really had me fooled. ;)

I definitely need to try that meetball recipe.

PamelaCooks said...

Ariell-

yeah I have done very few raw dishes short of salad. I am excited though, and bought Juliano's "RAW" from ebay. If you break it down and do a few things before, it's not as daunting. I need a juicer or blender and I can make more stuff, but some of it seems really easy.
I am excited to do sprouting and put my dehydrator to use.