Plant-based recipes zucchini

Welcome to this plant-based series where I take you on a journey of learning how to:

Get creative with vegetables
Experiment with delicious quick recipes
Easily get them into your meals every day

This week is zucchini, also known as courgette, and is another vegetable botanically classified as a fruit. They come in several varieties ranging in colour from deep yellow to dark green.

Health benefits of zucchini include helping to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, to stabilising blood sugar and improving immunity – all of which we want!

Zucchini made a comeback when spiralizers hit the market and we started substituting zucchini zoodles for spaghetti. This was especially popular for people wanting to eat more vegetables and those wanting to avoid gluten.

Most people feel better when they avoid gluten, due to the fact that the majority of gluten products on the market are found in processed products. Unless you can source organic, whole wheat that you grind yourself, you are better of nutritionally to eat other whole grains like brown rice, rolled or steel-cut oats and quinoa.

Zucchini Zoodles

The easiest way to make these is to purchase a spiraliser for around AUD$15. Spiralizers also work well with apples, sweet potatoes and carrots – and any other vegetables that are firm enough. You can eat them raw or quickly toss in a pan to just warm up as overcooking results in mushy zoodles! I toss the zoodles in a couple of tablespoons of water with garlic, tomatoes and chilli flakes. Then add the rest of the ingredients once I have turned off the heat.

Zucchini Soup

When all else fails – make soup! If you find yourself with an abundance of zucchinis this hearty soup is worth a try. I use nutritional yeast to add a cheesy flavour.

Layered Vegetable Bake

This is another recipe that can use just about any vegetable and is super easy. Layering the vegetables in either a casserole dish or even a slow cooker would work well. In between each layer sprinkle with herbamare, fresh herbs, nutritional yeast or any other seasonings. Cover and bake until all vegetables are cooked. This is a fabulous dish that you can prepare ahead of time or cook the day before.

Zucchini Fries

You can either cut circles or batons to make these zucchini fries. I prefer the batons because I quarter the zucchini lengthways and then slice away the centre with the seeds. This is helpful if you are cooking for texture sensitive people – or fussy children, as the seedy centre can become quite mushy! Just sprinkling herbamare and nutritional yeast flavours these fries nicely.

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I believe this is why so many diets fail.

We commit to a 6 week challenge - pay for a coach or announce it to the world and off we go!

But then the coaching ends OR the 6 weeks are up!

When I work with clients at some point they’ll say...I almost ate XXX on the weekend, but I knew I had to tell you so I resisted.

I am acutely aware that I will not be in my clients' lives forever.

So I never pass quickly over these revelations because I want to make sure they have the tools to deal with these situations when I’m not around.