The best. pasta. dish. ever.

Yeah, its creamy and green. Yeah it looks a bit funky. But this is THE tastiest pasta dish I have ever tried. And I made it myself! With just a handful of simple ingredients and a food processor. The entire recipe takes about 20 minutes to whip up. There is no cream in this pasta at all. What makes it so creamy and good then? AVOCADO (omg yummy).

This is definitely the good twin to alfredo's evil twin. When made with whole wheat pasta this is so healthy. Avocado is loaded with monounsaturated fatty acids (that's the "good" kind of fat) and has more potassium than bananas! (Also note: avocado is a berry. Who knew?)


Ingredients
1 medium avocado, peeled & pitted
1/2 lemon
Fresh Basil
2 big garlic cloves
Lemon Zest
Salt & Pepper
6 oz. whole wheat pasta







Throw the avocado in the food processor with fresh basil and garlic. Squeeze juice from lemon half into the mixture. Blend until creamy and add salt and pepper to taste. Lemon zest is optional, but it adds a really nice texture. Boil the pasta and strain it. Immediately throw the avocado sauce in and mix well. Serve immediately!

Pho!!

My favorite vietnamese dish is definitely pho soup. If you don't know, pho is vietnamese "beef noodle" soup. That makes it sound so plain- there is so much more to it than that. I can't believe I can get a large order of it, complete with fresh basil, cilantro, and everything else, for just $7. It cost way more than that to make it because of the long ingredient list. It is a simple soup however, so if you're feeding a crowd or have a few ingredients growing in your backyard, it's worth making. The best part is, the broth is given alongside all of the fresh ingredients, so each person can assemble their own bowl to their liking. Can't go wrong there!



Ingredients

Beef broth (I use a low sodium version)
Rice noodles
1/2-1 lb steak pieces, brisket, chicken or even tofu (it needn't be beef)
1 red onion, sliced into thin strips
fresh cilantro
fresh basil
green onion
garlic cloves
jalapeno or thai chili pepper, sliced
bean sprouts
lime slices

Lentil Bean Stew

Yum! Delicous! Double this recipe and freeze some, because you will want lots and lots of this yummy, thick, vegetarian soup.




Ingredients
1 bag lentil beans
8 cups water
handful of chopped carrots
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
splash olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 block (280 grams) frozen chopped spinach


1. First, rinse the lentis good to remove all dirt, make sure there are no rocks in them!
2. Put lentils in water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and continue to cook for about 30 minutes, meanwhile preparing vegetables.
3. Chop onion and carrots, saute in oil for about 5 minutes. Add garlic and remove from heat.
4. After the lentils and water have cooked for about 20-30 minutes, add the veggies
5. Add block of frozen spinach and continue to cook for another 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Salt and pepper to taste. Yum! Healthy! Soup! Serve with cornbread :-D

Minestrone Soup

Once, I looked up what "minestrone" soup meant, since the recipes are so many and varied. It boils down to this: Menstra is Italian for soup and -one is a suffix meaning "the big one". So Minestrone is "the big soup", literally, but colloquially means a (usually) vegetable soup made up of whatever leftover vegetables are in season, plus some sort of pasta or rice. Thus, everyone's is different and so are the recipes. Its great though, because you can tweak it to be precisely to your taste.



My mom got this excellent recipe from Cooks illustrated; when I recreated it, this is how mine ended up:


3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 sweet onion, peeled and diced
4 small ribs celery, chopped
1 baking potato, chopped
4 cups spinach leaves, sliced into strips
8 cups water
1 cup finely grated parmesean cheese
salt, pepper
28 oz can whole tomatoes, sliced
1 can cannelloni beans (white kidney beans)
whole wheat bowtie pasta


1. Finely chop all the vegetables (except the beans) and add to the soup pot with about 8 cups of water.

2. Cook on medium heat uncovered, stirring occasionally for about 1 hour

3. Add bow tie pasta, cook until al dente (8 minutes)

4. Add beans, heat and stir until temperature is even

5. Serve and enjoy