More Kabocha & Using Leftovers

What a week!  Work has been so busy, which I guess I should be thankful for, but have been feeling the need just to catch my breath lately. And catch up on housework with about 52 loads of laundry to do and some aggressive de-cluttering. I’ve been spending too much time playing on the weekends and playing in the kitchen on the weekdays. Totally worth it, but time to be an adult. :-P I’ve also been running a lot to break in my new shoes more and train for the CIM Relay coming up.

So far the ASICS GEL-Kinetic 3s have been working very well for me, I’m not noticing the occasional ankle and hip pain after longer runs as I did with my old shoes. And being 1/2 a size larger, they just feel better with more room and no rubbing. They weren’t cheap, but seem totally worth the price so far.

Ever since I discovered these beauties at Whole Foods, I’ve been addicted to kabocha squash.

They have a sweet, rich flavor close to butternut squash, but there’s something smoother and more satisfying about the texture. I also love the fact that I can eat the skin too and it’s also delicious. Which makes it easier to hack up and bake. Well, not really, the few I’ve worked with so far have been the toughest squashes I’ve ever cut through! A good, sharp 10″ chef’s knife is required! Once baked, the chunks store nicely in the fridge to top salads, add to bean stews or just snack on.

For this recipe, I just went super simple:

• 1/2 kabocha squash, seeded and chopped into 1″ thick chunks
• 2 tbsp. coconut oil
• 1 tsp. salt

Toss squash chunks in a bowl with the coconut oil and salt, place on a baking grid and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

I paired them with a raw salad coated in the nacho hemp sauce from Kristen Suzanne’s Hemp Book to complete the meal.

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The sauce is actually supposed to be used as a dip, but crazy here loves it as a salad dressing or kale chip coating.

The cheezy-spicy kick of the sauce paired well with the milder, sweeter squash. Because the sauce is so thick and contains lemon juice, it helps to preserve the salad leftovers for a few days in the fridge if needed. The next day I added to the leftovers for a heartier lunch salad.

And topped with nutritional yeast and sunflower seeds – yum!

Anyway, I was chatting with my mom about smoothies again because she’s still trying to grasp the concept of making a meal smoothie and wondering how a smoothie for breakfast was able to time me over until lunch. She complains she’s usually hungry an hour after having one. And mainly because she’s not putting protein powder her’s. For me that hasn’t been an issue because I pack so much into my smoothies. My typical breakfast smoothie contains a lot of kale or spinach, red cabbage, a carrot, frozen banana chunks (or whatever fresh fruit I have) and a heaping serving of Sun Warrior Protein Powder.

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It makes a great breakfast to have while I’m running around the kitchen doing some mad cleaning, catching up on emails, or going over my calendar before tearing out the door for work.

Another quick raw food I turned to this week was throwing a bunch of veggies, seasonings and seeds into my food processor for a pate, this one was broccoli and cauliflower mixed with a creamy hemp sauce and a little chili powder kick. I paired it with another attempt at shoe-string sweet potato fries – extra crispy this time. :-P

For lunch the next day, I blobbed the pate leftovers over a salad and topped with more nutritional yeast and sunflower seeds for another, quick and cheap lunch.

I find most veggie-based pates will last in the fridge for 3 days and a lot of the nut-based ones up to 5 days.

Well, I’m off to finish out this maddening week and maybe find a good happy hour after! :-)