Pesto Fettucini – Fake alert!

Total Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

For the “pasta”:

• 7-8 medium-sized zucchinis (or ridge-gourd/Tori/Turai/Peerkangai)
• A good peeler

For the sauce:

• 1 bunch basil leaves (about 2½ ounces)
• ½ cup pine nuts (or brazil nuts, or almonds) – I used brazil nuts as that’s the only thing I had!
• 2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about ½ of a lemon)
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• ¼ cup chopped sun dried tomatoes (optional)

Preparation:

• Peel the skin off the zucchinis.
• Once you remove the peel, continue to use the peeler on the vegetable, to make long, thin strips (that resemble fettucini, a flat, ribbon-like pasta). Towards the end, when you’re unable to peel anymore, just cut them with a knife into strips.
• Add a single tablespoon of olive oil and throw in the zucchini strips in a large pan. Sprinkle some water and allow it to cook.
• While the strips cook, blend basil, nuts, avocados, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil in a food processor (or even a blender works perfectly). Season with salt and pepper.
• Add the blended sauce with freshly cooked zucchini strips and garnish each serving with a basil leaf.
• For an extra touch of color and flavor, top pasta with sun dried tomatoes. Or you could even blend them in with the sauce!

Meal options:

• This is a meal rich in fats and carbs. You should add in a side of protein to go with this, and round it to an awesome meal. Three eggs, scrambled with some egg whites would be great.
• If you are trying to lose weight, reduce the fat content of this meal. Reduce the olive oil content, drop the nuts! That should shave about ~450 calories in total, and bring each serving to ~340 calories. Don’t forget to add in some protein though!

Nutrition:

• Total servings: 4
• Total calories ~ 1750; 440 calories per serving
• Protein ~ 27g; 6g per serving
• Fat ~ 145g; 36g per serving
• Carbs ~ 100g; 25g per serving

Recipe: This was conceptualized and prepared by Ranjani Shanker. Hopefully this solves your “what?! I cannot eat pasta anymore?! I hate you guys.” situation.