Recipes 4 Survival, Mindful Meals, & Sustainable Living Tips

Zucchini Pasta Carbonara: A Zero-Waste Culinary Adventure

• Donna Goldman • Season 2 • Episode 7

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Ready for a fabulous new favorite mindful meal I've now mastered, that's as kind to the planet as it is enticing to your taste buds? 

Please give a listen as I craft a sublime zucchini carbonara served over all organic angel hair spaghetti that perfectly embodies the essence of delectable, elevated sustainable cooking.

In this episode I'll the secret so you can learn how to achieve that perfect silky carbonara texture using just an egg yolk, a splash of olive oil, a touch of lemon juice and freshly grated Parmesan.  

The beauty of this dish lies not only in its simplicity but in its sustainability credentials – ingredients you can source locally from farm stands and virtually zero food packaging waste and 

Please find a step by step recipe that should help but I should also hope you'll make the dish along while listening or that you'll give a listen when you're inspired to make this Delicious, comforting, economical and mindful meal. 

WHAT TO DO: 

• GRATE Farm-fresh ZUCCHINI  on the large side of a box grater then add to a pan over a medium heat you've coated with a thin layer of olive oil. 

• Add SLICE or press at least 2 good sized garlic cloves to the sautéing grated zucchini. 

• I added a roughly chopped leftover oyster mushrooms I had from my  imperfect food delivery. 

 • Bring a good amount of water to a rolling boil then add a significant amount of salt. Angel hair pasta cooks in just 3 minutes so you want to add this once your sautéed zucchini comes together. 

• Now you're going to prepare the CARBONARA SAUCE: Separate one egg. Retain the yolk as this is what you're going to work with. Whisk gently, a splash of olive oil, the juice of a lemon wedge and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  Mix thoroughly.  Then slowly pour in some of the pasta cooking water. I used about a 1/4 of a cup. 

SOME TIPS:

• Use starchy pasta water to help bind the sauce

• The lemon juice definitely brightens the dish perfectly
• The hole in a pasta fork measures exactly one serving size
• Takes less than 20 minutes to prepare from start to finish

• Finish with freshly ground pepper and good olive oil 


• Creating sustainable, zero-waste meals is a form of everyday activism


Join me in becoming a disruptor through sustainable cooking and mindful meals. We've got to do something to make recipes for survival go viral!

Between cooking steps, I share my passionate thoughts on our current food system and the small acts of rebellion we can stage in our own kitchens. My frustrations with social media restrictions and bureaucratic barriers become metaphors for larger conversations about control and freedom. This carbonara isn't just dinner – it's a statement about reclaiming our connection to food in a disconnected world. The dish exemplifies my philosophy that the most meaningful changes happen through everyday choices: what we cook, how we source ingredients, and trying our best to eliminate food packaging waste.

Ready to become a disruptor in your own kitchen? Subscribe to Recipes for Survival for more mindful meals and sustainable living tips that prove eco-friendly cooking can be both accessible and delicious. Together, we can create change one plate at a time.

https://www.recipes4survival.com/

https://www.imperfectfoods.com/

You've GOT THIS.  I promise you'll see and be the change you wish to be. 

D

MINDFUL MEALS & SUSTAINABLE LIVING - The Art of Living an Elevated Lifestyle


Speaker 1:

Hi, my friends, I'm gonna make one of my newest favorite dishes right now.

Speaker 1:

These are from a farm in Connecticut. I had this leftover oyster mushroom from my imperfect, perfect food delivery, some Parmesan, lemon and angel hair pasta and I make like a carbonara. That's it. I make a little carbonara, beautiful dish to make, really easy, perfectly sustainable and zero waste. Coming at ya, we'll be right with ya. Thanks for joining me. I hope you love this piece as much as I do.

Speaker 1:

Hi, my friends, I'm gonna make this favorite new dish of mine. It's grated zucchini and like in a carbonara sauce over this beautiful angel hair pasta. Really simple, perfectly sustainable. And we'll get started by getting water boiling. That's how I start. Of course, this is washed. I'm going to grate it and then some garlic and goes into the fabulous frying pan and that's it. So let me get started already boil and I salt the water after it has come to a boil. This is washed and then I grate it on you know, the large side of a box grater. You can certainly, if you have a Cuisinart with one of those attachments, do it that way. It takes no time at all. I actually I love this dish so much. I actually I love this dish so much because it's perfectly sustainable no food, virtually no food packaging waste Very good for you, and you can get it all everything, pretty much at farm stands right now.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for whoever's joining me. Oh, I should actually go live on this. Oh joy, gee, let me do that. I'm gonna go live. Um, we'll be right back with you. What a good idea, right, and I'm really.

Speaker 1:

I love doing this for my podcast, and now I'm trying to make little mini pieces, what I was calling camping on land, which I did for TikTok, and people really liked it, so I'm trying to figure that format out. Also, I'm gonna go live. I'll be right back with you over there on Instagram. Oh boy, guys, I am gonna go now. Just when I decide I'm going to go live, I find out only public accounts with at least a thousand followers can go live. They're really helping out the creators, aren't they? When my account's been hacked two times and I had over 1,200 followers, I am livid right now, but I'm going to go on because I'm going to bust this system. I am a disruptor and this has to be seen, and this piece would have been live and it's exactly what we need to know right now Eating sustainable food without any no food packaging waste. So I'm gonna get started, however this may come out, and it's gonna go out on video, it's gonna go on my podcast, it's gonna go everywhere and I'm going to need a thousand followers, and fast. This has to go viral. I am livid.

Speaker 1:

Okay, my friends, you're here with recipes for survival, mindful meals and sustainable living. I'm going to calm myself right down. I'm making and I put a title on the live piece. I don't know, I'm calling it zucchini, pasta, carbonara, everything. Well, the zucchini, the eggs, came from a farm in Connecticut. A friend brought me. I grated the zucchini. It's in another, you know little video that I did before I decided, oh my gosh, I should just go live. And now the water's boiling but it only takes like three minutes for the pasta to cook. So I'm going to turn that down a bit so that the timing is right. We're a little closer than what it could be right now. Oh, I'm so derailed. I should have put the garlic in here first. No big deal. No big deal now. The little garlic clove I'm going to do over here on the work table, which is a shot of previously, before I decided I wanted to go live. Can you even believe that that? Oh, and then, along those same lines, check this one out um, who remembers? Um, who remembers what I went through with my passport? That my passport got lost in the mail, and that's when I cut my hair and went through this whole meltdown. Anyway, when I applied to renew my passport, I paid an extra $60 to expedite the procedure to get my passport, and then it got lost in the mail. So I was eligible, of course, for that refund. It took, and they tell you right away oh, that's going to take at least five to six months to get the refund back. I got the refund last week here.

Speaker 1:

I just neatened up the garlic and I'm actually putting it through rather than just, you know, slices. I'm, I'm actually gonna mince it because it comes out a little bit nicer in this dish. I don't know, I go for this and then that's it. And if you don't have one of these, then just mush it up or do it in slices, whatever. None of that stuff matters. You just want to be cooking, you don't want to be, you just want to be cooking healthy, clean food. I'd always have a scrap bowl around and, um, oh, yeah. So anyway, back to this. Here we go, we are living in total. They think they're um, doing away with restrictions. No way, that's all wrong. Also, oh my God, I'm skipping all over the place so you can see how beautiful this comes out.

Speaker 1:

It was just a very light, you know, coating of very nice olive oil. And I got. My friend gave me pink Himalayan salt. I'm going to put that in. I don't use pepper when I'm cooking, only at service. And now this is almost done. What I'm going to do next is I'm going to put the pasta in the boiling water, add salt to that. That I'll use just regular, you know, kosher salt, sea salt, kosher salt, anything like that, and you want it to have a good salty flavor. I'm really running out. Actually, you're gonna get myself some more salt of just plain good kosher sea salt. Now put the. I'm gonna put the temperature back up so it does come to a good rolling boil and then with the pasta.

Speaker 1:

Let me know, does anybody know that this hole in a pasta fork is how you can do a serving for a person? I always do a little bit more because I love it so much, but who else knew that? Did anybody else know that. I know I'm well. I've known now a while, so that's what you do. You can, can measure and that's gonna be a serving to one person. I love angel hair and I love Malfani, the one that's all like ribbity, and I love those also, but for this dish it's just fine because it goes really, really fast. Now I'm gonna to cook this down, that's it.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to show you really quickly how I make this carbonara. Oh, and you know what? I'm sorry I forgot. I've got these mushrooms from my fabulous, most perfect, imperfect food delivery and I'm just going to put these in so they don't go to waste. Put this in here.

Speaker 1:

So does anybody know you're watching Recipes for Survival, mindful Meals and Sustainable Living? It's not even live. I am livid, I am livid, I am livid. We have got to do something to make recipes for survival viral people. I'm going to be doing workshops, knife skills.

Speaker 1:

Let's just make the donuts, just make the carbonara. What I'm going to do is a yolk only, so crack it in half. I'm not going to turn the whole thing around and I'm going to separate the egg. I do not have the egg white For this dish in particular. It's just wonderful. I'm only using one egg, because it's me myself and I One egg yolk. It's going to go in this bowl because when you add the carbonara you don't want it so hot at all.

Speaker 1:

Let me bring you back over here to the work table. Let's see how that looks. Can you see anything yet? All right, perfect, that's the ague. I'm going to put some more olive oil in here. You could put the lemon in here also, but it went in the zucchini. It's just a nice added addition. You know, it's a good flavor for this dish and you can see this can take no time at all. No food packaging waste. Put a good amount in. So I'm grading Parmesan cheese here. That's it. Of course I could have shaved the Parmesan in advance, but I need to rant to Rachel.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so anyway, I end up getting this passport expediting fee refunded, a federal check that looks just like a tax return, and I go to the bank bank. We're talking $60. The lady at the bank says we're now not allowed to almost and almost said not forbidden but we're not allowed to cash government checks. Hello, is anybody hearing that you were not allowed to cash a government check? It needs to be deposited into your bank account. Okay, people, we're going to just sit around and take this shit. I don't think so. I do not think so. And then what I I'm gonna do is put a little of the pasta water in here. That'll be fun.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, I am losing it, people. Oh my god, I am losing it, people. I cannot stand this regime and the control and the no regard for human beings. And hey, we're waiting for a hurricane. What is it? In the 50s today, freezing cold in August? Oh no, climate control. That's a hoax. That's a real. That's a hoax. Yeah, oh, I just, I can't, I can't handle it. I think that's it Now. Did anybody see anything? Learn anything? I hope so. I'll bring this back here Now.

Speaker 1:

This has been off the heat for a little while. Let me just taste how it came out Killer, really good. Of course, I would say that, oh my god, I don't even know how to make a video anymore. I don't even know if I know how to do it. Let's get the pasta in here. That's the thing to do. Get the pasta in here. I'm not even going to drain it. See, I always think I want a whole lot. There you go. Probably the one serving exact size is perfect. I got green what can I say? Because I know how delicious this dish is, but it's not really fabulous leftover. But I'll eat it a number of times throughout the day and you see, it's really simple. Honestly, this can't even take 20 minutes. People, not All righty. And then, with a spatula, I put the sort of carbonara sauce in here, egg and cheese, like that. Also cleanup, oh my god, I am so livid. Oh, also.

Speaker 1:

So now I think they might think my account is a business account. So now I've got to figure out how to do make my account public, which I don't know how it became a business account. I don't understand anything anymore of this stuff. I'm not doing it. I'm just going to do my writing and my cooking. Does anybody know how to help me with Instagram now? Anybody out there? And, of course, I'm going to add parmesan, a little more parmesan, when I get ready to eat, and I'm going to add Parmesan, a little more Parmesan when I get ready to eat, and I'm going to do that shortly. I'm going to clean up and be right back with you Because I'm starving. Okay, I got to hit this so I can figure out how to put it together and get it out there that I will not no longer allowed to go live on Instagram. I have to figure out how to make my account public and have at least a thousand followers. They're really out, really out. Creator, huh, yeah, okay, I just I wish us all really well.

Speaker 1:

I'm doing what we can to brace for the storm, but we have got to be disruptors. Some freshly ground pepper. I put a drizzle of olive oil here. I've got a spoon to see. Let's see how much. Let's see how this came out. Let's see how. Telling you people it is great. Talk about comfort food. Oh my god, really good. A little bit of my salt of the earth, a little bit more parmesan, just to be, because we can. But just as it is, it's absolutely perfect. And I am telling you this can't even take 20 minutes to make One egg yolk and this could feed the amount I have. This could feed two people for sure. All right, I've had enough. I literally have made. I'm just sick about too much. It's just not fair. We gotta stop this. We gotta do something. Speak to you soon. Thanks for joining me for Recipes for Survival. I'm here to help.