Zucchini Linguine and other noodle substitutes

So, Christmas happened, and I fell off the paleo wagon in a big way. To be fair to myself, that was my intention. After completing a 10 week paleo challenge on December 23rd, during which I had only a handful of (mostly non-glutenous) cheats, I went home to mom's in London and I ate. A lot. Indiscriminately. I'll excuse myself for the gluten and sugar-filled Christmas dinner under my self-composed Plan to Cheat clause. For the rest of the holiday, I have no defense, except perhaps that gluten from mom's house doesn't count?

Climbing back aboard the paleo wagon is going to be made somewhat more difficult by the fact that I did not experience any immediate negative feedback from stuffing my face with...well stuffing. I did, however, experience several delayed consequences. The first was what I can only assume to be one mad sugar hangover (imagine feeling like you've been drinking all night, without the pleasure of a single glass of wine). In addition, my performance upon returning to the gym has been rather sub-par (I haven't been winded after a 500m warmup row in some time...)

I had planned to share the recipes from our pre-Christmas paleo cookie exchange, but in light of my recent vegetable cravings, I've decided my body has the right idea; the cookies can wait for another day. Instead, I'm sharing my favourite pasta substitutes. Pasta, as I see it, is really just a vessel for the sauce (with the possible exception of fresh, made from scratch noodles with nothing but parmesan, butter, and salt/pepper, but I digress). If you've been missing spaghetti, these substitutes are very tasty and often satisfy my noodle-type cravings.

Paleo Pasta
My favourite paleo "noodle" is spaghetti squash (pictured to the left). Cleave the squash lengthwise in half, scoop out the seeds, and bake face down for about 30 min or until a fork pierces the skin. Scrape out the innards with a fork and you've got spaghetti! Bonus: toss the cleaned seeds in olive oil and seasalt and toast in the oven for a tasty snack.

Zuccini is the next best noodle (on the right, with a tomato and cream cheese rose sauce and crumbled sausage). You can slice it with a mandoline for more spaghetti type noodles, or use a vegetable peeler lengthwise to make lingine. I've seen directions that suggest you saute or boil the noodes, but I find that if the sauce is hot enough you can just pour it on the raw noodles and they heat up sufficiently.

The last subsitute I've tried is chopped cabbage. It was hardly pasta-like in texture, but served as a handy vessel for my meatsauce one evening when I was feeling lazy.

Go nuts with your favourite sauce. I've put a couple suggestions below.

My version of a Meat Sauce

1. Brown ground beef or sausage in a large pan.
2. Add things that need sauteing like mushrooms, onions, peppers, carrots, and/or garlic
3. Add a diced tomato or 2 or three. Probaby you'd add tomato paste here, if you had that sort of thing, which I usually don't.
4. Season: I use lots of paprika and chili powder, salt and pepper, oregano and any other herb I feel like that day.
5. Simmer. Sometimes I add a bit of water. I usually leave the lid on for a bit to let the flavours distribute, and then leave the lid off to reduce moisture.
6. Sometimes I put a bit of red wine.

Usually by the time my squash is done baking, or I've finished making zucchini noodles, the sauce is ready to serve!

Creamy Mushroom Sauce

I haven't tried this exact recipe, but I made a similar tasty sauce for some porkchops and this one looks tastier (from Family Living Simple).

Ingredients
2 Tablespoons of Ghee or coconut oil
3 Cloves of Garlic
1 Cup of Mushrooms sliced
1/2 Onion chopped
1 Cup Coconut Milk (Full Fat)
1/4 Cup White wine
Pepper
Parsley

Heat the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until transluscent. Add the chopped Garlic and cook a few more minutes. Add the mushrooms. Mix everything up really well to make sure to coat all the mushrooms. Continue to cook for 3-5 more minutes. Add the wine and make sure it boils to cook off the alcohol. Turn the heat down to Medium low and add in the coconut milk. Add spices and let the sauce thicken a little bit and then remove from heat.

They served their sauce on steak but it looked like an excellent pasta sauce to me! Let me know if you try it.