#MeatlessMondays – Raw Tallarines Verdes

The first post I wrote for this blog, over 2 years ago, was about Tallarines Verdes, the Peruvian version of Italian pesto. This recipe was my first choice because it has been one of my favorite dishes since childhood. When I lived in England, as a university student, I must have eaten ready-made pesto in 30% or more of my meals. I never seemed to get tired of the basil-nut-garlic combination; on the contrary, the more I ate it, the more I liked it.

If I had known back then that making pesto -or «salsa verde»– was beyond easy, I probably would’ve had a more wholesome diet, without all the preservatives added to the commercial kinds found in the supermarkets. Of course, once I started getting a kick out of home cooking, I began experimenting -and still do- with all kinds of pesto sauces, including anything from peppers, to olives, to different kinds of greens, cheeses and milks.

This is by far the healthiest version I have come up with so far: it’s vegan, it’s raw, and it’s gluten-free. I was never convinced about how great raw pasta made with zucchini could actually be. I saw it in cookbooks, and in raw food restaurants’ menus, but I never quite bought into it until I finally tried it. My mother gave me Kris Carr’s book Crazy Sexy Kitchen a while back, and I found a recipe for squash pasta with sage pesto in there. It was divine. I would go as far as saying that I enjoyed it as much as the real thing. So try it! You have nothing to lose, and much to gain from making this nutritious meal.