Eight-Layer Thanksgiving Style Raw Pasta Salad

Eight-Layer Thanksgiving Style Raw Pasta Salad
This recipe is from Rev. Chef Beth Love, the Founder of Eat for the Earth

Yield: 6–10 servings (about 8–10 cups)

Ingredients:

• 1½ ounces assorted dried mushrooms, divided
• 2 cups vegetable stock, warmed
• 2–3 medium zucchini
• 2–3 crookneck squash or yellow zucchini
• 3–4 medium cucumbers
• 2–4 carrots
• sea salt
• ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon soft dates, stems and pits removed, coarsely chopped
• 1 medium apple, cored and cut into about 16 pieces
• 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
• 2 teaspoons lemon rind, minced
• ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
• ½ cup almonds
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons garbanzo bean or other light miso
• 3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1 bunch flat-leaved parsley (Italian parsley)
• 2 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, packed
• 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, loosely packed
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, loosely packed
• ½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, or to taste
• ¼ cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons minced onion or shallot
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon dark miso
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• 2–4 ounces sunflower or other large sprouts
• flower garnish, optional

Directions:

• Soak half of dried mushrooms in warm vegetable stock. Pulverize remaining mushrooms with a spice grinder into a fine powder. Set aside.
• Make veggie pasta using a spiralizer:
• Wash zucchini, crookneck squash, cucumbers, and carrots. Scrub carrots if necessary.
• Remove stem and blossom ends of zucchinis, cucumbers, and crookneck. Remove
  tops of carrots.
• Spiralize veggies individually, putting each in a separate bowl or colander over a
  bowl. As you complete each veggie, sprinkle several pinches of sea salt on the pasta and gently mix it into the pasta. Set aside.
• If your spiralizer leaves a little piece of each veggie unspiralized, reserve the pieces of squash for the pesto and the carrot and cucumber pieces for another use. If it
  does not leave a piece of veggie unspiralized, reserve about half of a zucchini and
  half of the yellow squash.
• Set salted pasta aside.
• Start mushroom gravy as follows:
• Remove soaked mushrooms from stock and coarsely chop them. Return to stock.
• Add chia seeds to stock and mushrooms and set aside to gel.
• Make cranberry-apple relish as follows:
• In a food processor, combine dates with about half of the apple pieces. Process until dates are well pulverized.
• Add remaining apples, cranberries, lemon rind, and cardamom. Process until ingredients are well mixed and chopped and you have a coarse-textured relish. You
  may have to pause and scrape down several times.
• Set cranberry-apple relish aside.
• Make almond herb sauce as follows:
• In a food processor, grind the almonds into a fairly fine grind.
• Add reserved squash, lemon juice, light miso, and garlic. Process until fairly smooth.
• Add parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
• Process until everything is well combined and you have a coarse pesto texture. You
  may have to pause and scrape down several times.
• Add nutritional yeast and black pepper and process again to incorporate.
• Set almond herb sauce aside.
• Finish mushroom gravy as follows:
• Add powdered mushrooms, onion, dark miso, and balsamic vinegar to mushroom
  gravy.
• Mix well.
• Taste and adjust seasonings. Set mushroom gravy aside.
• Assemble the salad by layering the components in a large (at least 2 quarts), clear glass
  bowl in the following order, starting at the bottom:
• Zucchini pasta
• Cranberry apple relish
• Crookneck pasta
• Almond herb sauce
• Carrot pasta
• Mushroom gravy
• Cucumber pasta
• Sprouts sprinkled with pine nuts.
• Or, if you choose to make salad jars, use 4–5 pints sized jars and layer as above.