Since summer weather hit, most of my evening meals consist of spiralized veggies topped with some kind of yummy sauce. Thankfully, I’m not left to my creativity alone. I’ve had lots of help from our Raw Foods Thursdays participants.

Here are a few posts that you’ll want to check out:

• Johnna of In Johnna’s Kitchen did a lovely Spiralizer Round Up highlighting some fabulous raw noodle recipes.
• Katja of The Savory Lotus showed us just how endless the options are with vegetable noodles if you have a spiralizer.

Do you have a spiralizer yet? If not, let me highly recommend that you get one. I guarantee that it won’t become just one more kitchen gadget that you need to find room to store once the newness wears off. I use mine almost on a daily basis. Not only does it give you creative ways to use veggies but it increases your vegetable consumption, because squiggly veggies are just so much more fun to eat than veggie sticks!

I’ve been wanting to share this raw pasta dish for a while. It’s super easy to make and even more fun to eat! I hope you enjoy it!

Raw Spinach Pesto Pasta

by Heather

Pesto Ingredients:

• 1 c. basil
• 1 c. spinach
• 1/2 c. soft nuts – cashews, pinenuts, or walnuts work well
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/3 c. olive oil
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

Vegetable Ingredients:

• 2 large zucchini, spiralized
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced
• 1 yellow pepper, diced
• 3 cups of spinach

Directions:

1. Peel and spiralize zucchini and place noodles in a large bowl.

2. Place all pesto ingredients in a food processor and process.

3. Pour pesto over the zucchini noodles and mix with your hands until all noodles are coated.

4. Fold in most tomatoes and peppers, saving a few to sprinkle on top.

5. Place a bed spinach on each plate and top with Raw Spinach Pesto Pasta.

Serves 4

Readers, dish!

• Do you have a spiralizer? If so, how do you use it?
• What is your favorite veggie to spiralize?

We have a winner! Last week’s Paleo Giveaway was Gather, the Art of Paleo Entertaining by Hayley Mason and Bill Staley. And the winner is…

J’lene!

She won with this comment, “Our family has been on the paleo bandwagon for about 7 months now and I’m always on the lookout for new and exciting recipes! I don’t eat much meat myself and love that you have a variety of options on your site!”

Thank you, J’lene, and I think that this is a perfect book for your family. I hope you’ll use it to nourish your beautiful, active family. J’lene writes the blog Get Nourished, which you should check out!

Didn’t win this time but still want the book? You can get yourself a copy of Gather, the Art of Paleo Entertaining right here through Amazon. A few cents will even be tossed back to help run Gluten-Free Cat and these giveaways.

I will have one more paleo giveaway next week. So come back and check it out!

Welcome to Raw Foods Thursdays! As the summer temperatures rise I am less drawn to cooked food, and I actually crave raw meals. Whether you’re a regular raw foodie or you’re just ready for summery raw food snacks and meals, welcome! Summer is the perfect time to enjoy raw goodness, because the kitchen stays cool, the meals are light, and bountiful summer produce is delicious, nutritious, and inspirational.

Are you new to raw foods? Are you ready to turn off the oven and keep things cool? Turn to last week’s Raw Foods Thursdays submissions for summersational ideas!

Instead of hot oatmeal, try a soaked oat breakfast or Berries and Vanilla Cream by Stephanie of Good Girl Gone Green.

Swap your heavy sandwich for some yogurt. Vegan yogurt with 3 simple ingredients like this Sunshine ‘Yoghurt’ by Almost Skinny Vegan Food.

Chillin’ by the pool? No need for a sugary lemon lime soda when you could be sipping on Raia’s Lemon-Lime Cooler.

If you’re having fun in the sun, you’d better be slathered in this Shea Cocoa Avocado Oil Body Butter by Amber of The Tasty Alternative.

And you must get your greens for dinner, right? How about Davida’s Chocolate Cherry Green Smoothie at The Healthy Maven?

Now for a couple of super cool raw desserts.

Try this Raw Strawberry Cream Pie from Kathy’s Kitchen, Health, and Nutrition.

Or this Strawberry White Chocolate Ice Cream Cake by Apples And Ginger.

Okay, I’m fully aware that I’ve over highlighted and over shared. But how can you just choose two or three when such delicious rawness exists? Go check them out!

This week I’m submissing these Raw Chewy Oat Apple Cookies.

What do you have to share this week?

Here’s how you can participate:

• Simply link up a raw foods recipe (see What is Raw Food?), mention Raw Foods Thursdays, and link back to this post so your readers can join in the fun!
• Please link to the recipe, not to a blog’s home page, so we can all find your raw foods recipe.
• You may link up a recipe that you’ve made in the past. Just make sure to share something different each time you participate.
• Be sure to leave a comment letting us know who you are and what you’re sharing.
• Feel free to use the Raw Foods Thursdays blog badge created by the lovely, talented Heather Peters!

• Plant-based meals that are not cooked.  Dehydrators may be used.  (The raw foods community has differing views on temperature, but the range is between 104 and 118 degrees.) Feel free to link up recipes that use a slightly higher temperature as long as they could be made at 118 with a longer dry time.
• Raw Ingredients: vegetables, fruit, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, gluten-free sprouted grains, beans, and oils.

What isn’t raw?

• Anything cooked or heated above 118.
• Anything processed.  If it comes from a can or a package that lists more than one ingredient, chances are it’s not raw!
• If your recipe contains an ingredient like maple syrup that makes your submission “almost raw”, please share it anyway. Raw sweeteners are easy to substitute.

(And if you haven’t already entered Monday Lovin’ Gluten-Free Cookbook Giveaway #4, you still have a few hours to do so. The giveaway ends at midnight tonight! I also have a NON-RAW giveaway of Gather: The Art of Paleo Entertaining going on for my paleo friends. Contest ends on Saturday.)

Paleo friends, do I have a treat for you! After my recent announcement that this blog is going raw vegan, I hope that a few of you are still with me! I’ve actually found that Paleo and Vegan folks make good friends. In fact, I’m married to a paleo guy, so I ought to know. While I don’t eat his meat and he doesn’t eat my legumes, I can make meat for him, and he eats my raw vegan dishes as sides. For us, it works. In fact, I use several paleo books and blogs to find recipes that work for both of us.

But before I completely dedicate this blog to all things raw vegan I have 3 paleo giveaways for you.

Let me start with a book that many of you are salivating over. And for good reason. Paleos have been buzzing about Hayley Mason and Bill Staley’s Gather, the Art of Paleo Entertaining. And now I understand why. They have created a book that speaks to the soul. Regardless of how you eat, you will open this book and instantly want to create an event, a meal, a snippet in time where food is savored and memories are made.

Gather is organized by season and presents creative meal themes with flavorful menu plans and recipes that paleos typically only dream of. It begins with fresh springtime menus such as Casual Sunday Brunch and a more formal Easter Lunch and continues on to summer with A Night in Tuscany and A Taste of Cuba. Fall highlights include Harvest Dinner that ends with a Pumpkin Torte with Cream Cheese Frosting and Caramel as well as a creative plan for a Thanksgiving Feast. The books concludes with winter celebration themes including birthdays, holidays, and a New Year’s Cocktail Party. Gather paints pictures of memorable moments the whole year through and makes them accessible to paleo diners.

This book is for those who desire to create special moments in their homes where friends and families gather. But it also provides inspiration and possibilities for paleo eaters who no longer eat grains. There are recipes for Pizza Margherita, Chocolate Chip Biscotti, Apple Pie with a Lattice Crust, and even a section called Takeout Fake-Out including a recipe for General Tso’s Chicken.

I’m giving this gorgeous hardback book away to one lucky reader.

All you have to do is make a comment below to enter. You can leave up to 2 entries today by answering 1 dish question and letting me know in a separate comment that you either shared the giveaway on Twitter (tagging @glutenfreecat) or “liked” Gluten-Free Cat’s Facebook page and shared the giveway with your Facebook friends. Makes sure that Gluten-Free Cat is tagged so that I can approve your comment.

Giveaway Guidelines:

• This giveaway is limited to U.S. residents 18 and older residing in the continental U.S.
• Enter by leaving a comment on this post.
• You are limited to 2 entries.
• The giveaway begins Tuesday, June 11, 2013 and ends at 11:59 pm central time on Saturday, June 15, 2013.

No purchase is necessary.  Odds of winning are based on the number of entries.  The winner will be randomly chosen and will be contacted by email.  The winner will have 48 hours to respond.  If the winner does not respond, a new winner will be randomly chosen.

Can’t wait for the giveaway? You can order Gather, the Art of Paleo Entertaining right here through Amazon. I’ll even get a few pennies if you do!

Readers, dish!

• Why would you like to win Gather?
• Are you a paleo eater?
• Do you have different types of eaters in your home? How do you handle that?