Raw Creamy Spring Pasta with Lemon and Asparagus

Recipe AMES STARR, owner of Raw and Peace Cafe in Maleny Ahh, the glory of Spring is finally upon us! And with this brings the excitement of the new seasons fruit and vegetables to play with! Eating with the seasons – which means eating locally grown, organic produce – is one of the easiest, and most important ways you can reconnect with your plate. We absolutely love visiting our farmers to collect our cafe produce! We have been lucky enough to have been gifted an enormous amount of local, organic lemons by some beautiful people in our community. This recipe comes from our Spring classes last year, and is a great way for us to slowly work our way though our abundance of lemons! Ingredients: 500g zucchini 1 lemon, juiced 1 ripe avocado 2-3 cloves garlic Salt and pepper to taste 1 bunch asparagus ½ cup olive oil Optional: 1 bunch rocket and 1 cup peas Method: 1. Shred or spiralise zucchini. You can do this with a spiraliser if you have one. Alternatives are with a mandolin (v-slicer), or you can make thicker, fettuccine like strips just with a vegetable peeler. Place in a large mixing bowl. 2. Slice asparagus and add to the zucchini spaghetti. Slicing lengthways looks much more attractive than little chunks. 3. In a high speed blender, combine the avocado with the lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper. Blend until creamy. If you don’t have a blender, you can mash together with a fork. Try to remove all lumps and get as creamy a consistency as you can. 4. Finely chop garlic, and add to the avocado mix. 5. Pour the avocado mix over the zucchini. Here comes the fun part – massage the sauce into the zucchini with your hands – be sure to wash them first! Put the bowl aside to rest for 10-15 minutes. This will allow the zucchini time to soften, so as to create more of a ‘cooked’ texture. 6. If you are adding the rocket, now is the time to give it a wash to remove any dirt. Gently shake off excess water and roughly chop the leaves. Mix through with zucchini. 7. If you are adding peas, get in your rocking chair and start shelling! Add to zucchini, and mix through.