Hello and welcome to Freshly Served the healthy
vegan cooking show.
Iím Heather and tonight were gonna make an
avocado pasta.
And for the pasta Iím using some Kamut penne
and Kamut is a grain much like wheat or spelt
but anyway itís a whole grain and Iíve got
some water boiling here.
Iím going to put just a pinch of salt in
the water.
Hmm, like that and pour this pasta in.
The reason for the water being salted is to
help the cooking process of the pasta not
for boiling or anything like that.
Ok, so leave that and then were gonna move
on to what were going to dress this pasta
in which is always the most exciting part.
In the summer I like to use lemons.
So I got this gigantic lemon here and Iím
going to zest it.
And whenever Iím zesting lemons I like to
make sure, I mean I always buy organic produce
but if Iím zesting something in particular
I want it to be organic because the skin is
where the chemicals will stick.
Make sense right?
When theyíre spraying pesticides itís going
to hit the skin so if youíre peeling the
skin off of the lemons Iím really just canít
bring myself to buy a non organic one.
So get the zest off and I am a big fan of
zest so Iím gonna use all of these and then
what I do is cut the lemon in half then I
get my little strainer, put it over the bowl
and this bowl is a little bit too big.
Iíve chosen a bowl thatís big enough to
fit the pasta inside it because then I donít
have to have two different bowls, one for
the sauce and one for the pasta.
So, Iíll just stick this strainer at the
bottom of the bowl and what I do is stick
my zester into the lemon to get all the juice
out and like I said this is one gigantic lemon
so itís gonna have a lot of juice in here
which I like.
But if youíre not so big on lemon what you
can do is either choose as smaller lemon,
most of them arenít this big or if you do
have one this big you can just use half so
cut down on the lemon juice and you can add
some water or some orange juice maybe a little
bit sweeter, a little less tart.
I love lemon; I could eat them just on their
own.
Check out how much juice came out of that
lemon that is awesome!
So into the bowl with the lemon juice Iím
going to press some garlic and I like to press
the garlic in my press when Iím using it
raw because otherwise it can get a little
bit too intense so squeeze it right out and
then just scrape all that out.
Now whole grain pastas do tends to stick a
little bit so make sure you give it a stir
every so often.
Sometimes it stick on the bottom, sometimes
it stick to each other but if you stir them,
they will be just fine.
And the next Iím gonna add into the bowl
with the lemon and the garlic is some fresh
mint that Iím gonna chopped up as well as
some green onion.
Green onion or chives both are beautiful in
this.
Iíd probably prefer chives but I ran out,
so green onion it is.
The pasta is done and you can test that by
just taking a piece out and tasting it.
Simply choose and al dente is how I like it
which is just a little bit on the firm side,
my dad likes it very very cooked.
And you know stickers on the bottom just scrape
them off and then put in some water right
in the pot, it will lift them up really easily
and then it will be fine.
Ok, give it a little toss to get any extra
water off with penne because theyíre these
tubes of pasta.
They can sometimes hide water inside, never
nice when you take a bite of pasta and thereís
like boiling water in there just waiting to
burn your tongue.
Ok, dump that into the bowl with the lemon,
the mint and the green onions or the chives.
Give it a toss around and then were gonna
season this with some sea salt and Iíve put
dry kelp into my salt shaker so that it decreases
the amount of salt that I have come out but
it keeps the salty flavor from the kelp.
Some black pepper Iím not gonna need too
much on this one and some nutritional yeast
which if you donít have it, itís not absolutely
necessary but let me tell you, it adds a lot
of flavour.
So if you find some, try it.
Throw it in.
Itís really good.
It tastes a little bit cheesy.
Some people ñ ok, itís called nutritional
yeast because some people say it has a lot
of nutrients in it and Iím sure it does but
they havenít been able to figure out if we
can actually use the nutrients from the nutritional
yeasts and it depends from the quality of
the nutritional yeast that you get so when
I use it, itís mostly for flavour.
If there are nutrients in there then thatís
just a bonus.
Ok, so that is all ready to go and then what
Iím gonna do is Iím gonna take an avocado
and slice it up.
We can put it on top.
When you look for an avocado it should be
brown on the outside, if itís green itís
not yet ripe, youíll have to leave it to
ripen for about a week.
If you press the skin, it should be a little
bit soft, not too soft.
You shouldnít be able to like stick your
finger right down into the pith.
But soft enough that you know itís ripe.
So what you do to cut an avocado is you slice
all the way around and then turn and it should
open like so.
The pith will stay on one side and the other
side will be empty.
When the pith is brown like this thatís when
you know itís perfectly ripe because thereís
nothing stuck to it.
To get the pith out simply whack it with your
knife, give it a twist and it will come off
like that.
Then to get the skin off, slice it into quarters.
Avocado likes to stick to your knife and then
just peel the skin off.
The last thing Iím going to add to this pasta
is a whole bunch of sprouts that Phil has
grown in a jar here.
They add a huge amount of nutrition because
they are the point at which the plant is coming
out of the seed, it has a ton of nutrients;
itís high in protein relative to its weight.
They donít weigh very much and it just really
packs a huge nutritional punch so toss a bit
in there.
Iíve got a lot because I like a lot but start
small.
And to serve Iím just gonna lay a few slices
of my avocado on top here and sometimes people
are afraid to eat avocado because it is fairly
high in fat but the type of fat that is in
avocado is monounsaturated which is shown
to be beneficial for cholesterol and youíll
notice that I didnít use any oil in this
recipe Iím just gonna get a little bit of
ground pepper on there.
The best source of fat is whole food like
avocado rather than oil.
The fresher the food the better so get dose
of some essential fat in your diet with some
avocado on to lovely lemon pasta.
You can find the recipe at HealthyVeganRecipes.net.
Iím heather and this is Freshly Served.
