I Adopted a Blogger: Addicted to Veggies' "Buttery" Zucchini Pasta - Quick & Easy Raw Vegan!

For this post, I am taking part in the Book of Yum's Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger Event. This recurring online event is a great way to bring the gluten free community together by exposing each other to different gluten free bloggers - vastly expanding all of our gluten free recipe repertoires.

My version of Vegan, Gluten Free "Buttery" Zucchini Pasta

This week I adopted Sarafae's Addicted to Veggies. This blog is an amazing stockpile of beautiful, creative, and realistic raw, vegan, gluten free recipes. I've been drooling over the pictures of her Buttery Zucchini Pasta for weeks now (click here for the recipe). This event jump started me to finally try it out and enjoy it myself. What a blessing! This meal was melt in your mouth heaven! Even if you aren't addicted to veggies, like Sarafae, this rich, velvety dish will rapidly go to the top of your favorite recipe list. You seriously won't believe it's not butter -- or pasta noodles for that matter!

making the vegan butter sauce

I tried to follow the recipe to a T, but I goofed up and forgot to buy miso at the store. Some miso's are gluten free, but are often made of soy - which I don't eat either. However, many misos can contain barley or even wheat - so if you stick to Sarafae's recipe - make sure you purchase a gluten free miso. A chickpea miso might be a good one to try. OR you could do what I did, and substitute 2 tablespoons of gluten free nutritional yeast, and skip the miso altogether.

grinding the seed and herb mix

makin gluten free pasta noodles

mixin' it up

Also, after I got back from the store, I realized I hadn't restocked on safflower oil since I moved. So, I had to substitute olive oil. Doing so made the "buttery" sauce quite a bit thicker than Sarafae's looked, so I added 2 tbs of plain almond milk to thin it out a bit. This actually seemed to do the trick, because the result was an I can't believe it's not butter vegan cream sauce.

walnut and mushroom "ground meat"

The only other modification I made was more of an addition/side dish. Because I feed Brian, who ran for 5 hours in the snow/rain/hail this morning to peak three local mountains, I had to beef up this meal. And since Brian is a vegetarian, I had to faux-beef up the meal.

After peeling the zucchini into noodles, I was left with some decent sized nubs at each end. I hate to waste food, so I started cutting these in small, thin pieces for some sort of side dish. Then I thought I'd add a bunch of chopped fresh spinach, which I massaged to wilt it a bit. I realized I was still giving Brian just a plate full of green vegetables, so I decided to make a fake ground meat.

protein-filled faux ground meat

Into the food processor went a handful of mushrooms, about 3/4 cup of walnuts, a cored and diced tomato, and an assortment of seasonings - cumin, pepper, garlic, oregano, basil. parsley, paprika (for color), and a dash of each cinnamon and cayenne. I pulsed this mix a few times, making sure not to puree the mix, but just dice it lightly till it looked like the texture of ground beef. I added the fake ground beef to the chopped zucchini and spinach and put it in a small pan to warm alongside the pasta.

After about 30 minutes, they were both warmed. I put the Italian-style vegan ground meat mixture on top of the pasta and garnished with fresh chopped basil. This was AMAZING! Words cannot express what a sensation of flavor and texture this truly buttery pasta dish is. Brian was ecstatic. I have tried for a while now to make a dairy free cream sauce, and it has never worked out. This is going to be a new staple for me.

I can't believe it's not noodles or butter

Also, I thought the noodles came out just like soft, but durable pasta noodles - almost similar to egg noodles.Who needs a spiralizer when you've got a vegetable peeler! I give mega props to Sarafae and Addicted to Veggies for one of the best recipes I have had in a while. Thank you Book of Yum for getting my bum in gear to finally recreate this fantastic dairy free, gluten free, meat free, flavor full creamy pasta dish! I highly recommend it!

Delicious vegan, gluten free, raw, buttery pasta with "meat"

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