Avocado Pesto Pasta Recipe

• 1 medium Avocado – peeled and pitted
• 3 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, minced
• 2 tbspns extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 8 ounces uncooked gluten free pasta

Put water on to boil for the pasta, according to supplier’s directions. Put avocado, garlic, basil leaves, olive oil, salt into a blender and blend until smooth. Cook your pasta.

Put the avocado mixture into a large mixing bowl. Once the pasta is cooked, drain and add to the bowl. Mix the avocado mixture through the pasta and serve. Goes great with a green salad or gluten free bread. We like to go for garlic and pesto overload! just double up on the garlic and basil.. mmm.

What other great avocado vegan recipes do you like?

For years we have started our seedlings on the porch, with relative success. It provides the plants with adequate protection from frost until we can put those tender seedlings into warm and cozy garden beds come the end of May. Of course, we’d love to have a big old hoop house like the pros use, but it’s hard to justify the high cost to get one started and keep it running unless you make your living that way. We’re not there yet. This is still mostly a wonderful hobby of ours.

This year though, we built a mini greenhouse for the seedlings to live in and what a difference! We still sprout them on the porch, on heat mats, but then they went in the greenhouse. The plants get a lot more direct sunlight throughout the day, resulting in the rich green color and sturdy, stalky plants pictured above.

This little structure was very inexpensive to build. Yeah, It’s ugly, but it’s cheap and it gets the job done.

I didn’t save receipts, but I’d estimate we didn’t spend 100 dollars to build this. There’s no artificial heat source and no lights. So far, there’s been no need to heat it. All of the lumber came from scrap materials left over from other farm projects, which you could probably get from your local landfill’s demolition dumpster. It’s 10′ wide x 5′ deep x 7′ tall and covered with 6 mill plastic. The roof is made of transparent corrugated plastic paneling from the building center, probably the most expensive component, but important to help it last through many years of harsh New Hampshire winters. We put about 12 hours of work into it over a weekend.

The real benefits are that we can keep our plants in one place and they get a lot more direct sun. We don’t have to move them outside during the day to harden them off (get them used to sunlight and wind) and then in at night to protect from them from frost. The greenhouse warms up within minutes when the sun hits it in the morning, so the plants begin their growing day sooner. At night, we’ve had temps down below freezing, and it’s gotten down to 32F inside, but because the plants don’t experience the dew and the wind with the greenhouse closed up, the plants are not subject to frost, even at freezing temps.

We’re no using it for our heat loving plants – for peppers and tomatoes we would have to heat it at night. Given the size of the greenhouse, we could probably achieve temps of 80F easily with a single infrared heat lamp. I might just build a second one with double wall plastic to help insulate it, for use with heat-loving plants, but for now, this is working great for our brassicas, our flowers, our alliums, leafy greens, etc.

One of my favorite meals does not have a recipe. I guess you could call it a mashup. We think about all the basic colors of plant foods: Red, Green, Yellow, Orange, Purple and then think about what flavors and textures we want. Then we start taking inventory in the vegetable bin and get to work slicing things into shapes and sizes that will mix well together.

It’s funny, but this kind of food preparation will undoubtedly appeal to a few, but will also drive some people nuts. Well, if you like recipes, here are a few favorites. Meanwhile if you like to walk on the wild side now and again, try this! Just start thinking about colors and tastes and shapes. Use what you know from other recipes and mashup some veggie coolness! What have you got to lose? You might just find a new favorite dish.

Better taste, healthier color, fresher food, more nutrient density. Find out what others are saying:

The Benefits of Farm Fresh Eggs (Via Williams Sonoma)

Farm Fresh Eggs vs Conventional Factory Farm Eggs – a Photographic Comparison

Farm Fresh Eggs VS Storebought (via GardenWeb)

March is a pretty exciting time for New England farmers: The seed order arrives, we start digging around for seedling trays and heat lamps. Sprouting seeds kick of the re-greening of the dead brown ground being revealed by the quickly retreating snow banks. Karen has broccoli and kale started already, pushing up first leaves. Last week she planted 4 kinds of tomatoes and 3 kinds of peppers. This week, some of the early flowers and herbs will find their spot out on the seedling starting porch.

Get ready for some great produce this year!

Vegan Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

Here’s another health conscious make-over of an old comfort food favorite. This recipe is vegan, dairy free, gluten free and very, very good. You have to try it to believe it. The “cheese” sauce is also great on nachos, as a topping on broccoli or baked potatoes.

Vegan Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

• 8 ounces dry Macaroni noodles
• 4 slices of bread
• 2 tbspns + 1/3 cup margarine
• 3 tbspns shallots, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup red or yellow potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 cup carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 cup yellow onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup raw cashews
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/4 tspn fresh garlic, peeled and minced
• 1/4 tspn prepared dijon mustard
• 1 tbspn fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 tspn ground black pepper
• 1/4 tspn ground cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tspn ground paprika

In a large pot, bring the water and salt to a boil. Add macaroni and cook until al dente. In a collander, drain pasta and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

In a food processor, make breadcrumbs by pulverizing the bread and add 2 tbspns margarine to a medium-fine texture. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a saucepan, add shallots, potatoes, carrots, onion, water and bring to a boil. Cover pan and simmer for 15 minuts, or until vegetables are very soft.

In a blender, process the cashews, salt, garlic, 1/3 cup margarine, mustard, lemon juice, black pepper and cayenne. Add softened vegetables and cooking water to blender and process until perfectly smooth.

In a large bowl, toss the cooked pasta and blended cheese sauce until completely coated. Spread mixture into a 9×12 baking dish, sprinkle with prepared breadcrumbs and dust with paprika. Bake 30 minutes or until the cheese sauce is bubbling and the top has turned golden brown.

Recipe created by:

Allison Rivers Samson, Maven of Mmmm.. at www.AllisonsGourmet.com. Originally printed in her award-winning column, ‘Veganize It!’ in VegNews Magazine.

Lettuce wraps are great because you can do almost as many things with lettuce as you can do with traditional sandwiches. Here’s a great recipe we made up recently that’s flavorful, filling, gluten free, dairy free, and loaded with high density nutrients.

Spicy Tuna Lettuce Wraps

A Can of your favorite tuna
2 Tbspns mayonnaise or equivalent dressing
2 tbspns capers
1 small brown tomato, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1/4 cup diced yellow or green onion
1/4 cup diced spanish olives
1 tbspn minced pickled jalapeño peppers
Romaine lettuce

Just mix the first 8 ingredients together well, and spoon onto rinsed and dried lettuce leaves. Suggested variations on this: chicken, salmon, hard-boiled eggs or tofu.

If you’re looking for a great tasting gluten-free, dairy-free meal, try this Avocado Onion Salad from my friend Geninne Zlatkis:

Avocado Onion Salad

• 1 ripe avocado, peeled, cored, sliced into 3/4 inch chunks
• 2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and cut in half
• 1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
• juice from one lime half
• sea salt
• extra virgin olive oil
• ground pepper

To make the onion milder, just salt it generously and let it sit for 15 minutes, rinse them well and squeeze out any excess water between the folds of a towel.

Add a pinch of sea salt and pepper to taste, to one tspn olive oil, plus the juice of the lime. Drizzle over the top and enjoy!

Thanks to Geninne Zlatkis of La Marquesa Mexico for the idea. Follow her on Instagram: @geninne on Facebook
or check out her art blog here!

There’s nothing like a salad made with fresh raw vegetables to make you feel energized, satisfied and content without being weighted down and feeling like you need a nap after lunch.

The key to enjoying a healthy salad for lunch is combining it with the right dressing to make it pop.

This is one of our favorite salad dressings which also happens to be fresh made, vegan, dairy free, gluten free, and contains no preservatives or chemicals to make your skin crawl or your hair fall out.

Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing

1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
4 tbspns soy sauce
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
4 tbspns wildflower honey
4 tbspns peeled and minced ginger
2 tspns toasted sesame oil

Just add these ingredients to a pint canning jar, or a plastic bowl with a lid and shake it up, spoon onto your favorite salad. Also works great as a teriyaki marinade.

Vegan BBQ Carrot and Spinach Sandwich

For people eliminating meat, dairy and wheat from their diets, it gets tricky trying to make meals that have a satisfying taste and still provide healthy solid nutrition. Here’s one I made up today because I was craving BBQ. Would I rather have BBQ pork smothered in cheese on a wheat roll? Hell yeah! But I have to say, this was a delicious alternative I think you’re going to like. Also – It’s packed with vitamins and minerals, Vegan, Dairy-Free and Gluten-Free!

• 1 large raw carrot, washed, sliced into 1/8 ribbons
• 3 cloves raw garlic, peeled, diced
• 1 tbspn olive oil
• 1 cup fresh baby spinach leaves
• 2 slices of your favorite bread
• BBQ sauce to taste

I used a slicing mandolin to cut the carrot, add along with garlic, 1 tbspn extra virgin olive oil to a good size cast-iron frying pan over medium heat. Saute the carrot ribbons, turning every minute or so, until they start to soften enough that you can bend them easily; about 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, toast the bread. We like Whole Grain Genius by Glutino for this (an absolutely delicious gluten free bread). It’s hard to tell the difference between this and “regular” bread that contains wheat, especially when it’s been toasted.

Carefully layer the spinach leaves, carrot ribbons and garlic onto one slice of the bread, top with BBQ sauce (we also put a little A1 sauce as well) and the other slice of bread and chow down!

Oh yeah, and have a napkin handy before you sit down to eat… this is a leetle messy!