GF One Ingredient Fettuccine with Pumpkin Sage Alfredo...and the importance of movement

Hello vegheads! It's been a few days since my last entry and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and start to your week. Yesterday I went to my first exercise class since I've began this transformational journey at a wonderful local yoga center where I took a semi-private core training class. I felt so great that I signed up for a package of them. I'm going again tomorrow and then going to stay for a yoga class after. I've been really hesitant to start working out, mainly because of nerves surrounding working out around other people. When you're not real happy with your body, the idea of moving it in awkward poses and motions in front of other people can be quite intimidating! But movement is really important.. it can relax us, reintroduce us to our bodies, and help increase our feel good chemicals in our brain.
I have to say that I've become much more comfortable with my body, though, thanks to my therapist who has really helped me overcome some lingering obstacles from my past, womaning up and facing things I'd usually run from, and working on my self esteem to feel confident in my abilities and comfortable with who I am. What I found really cool was really feeling out my new body with all of the exercises we did. When I got home, I wanted to make something that wasn't too heavy in my tummy, but inspired by a heavier pasta dish and also quick to make. I received a spiralizer as one of my gifts over the holidays from one of my aunts (This one is what I have and I highly recommend it; it even holds other blades in the main compartment) and I hadn't had the opportunity to put it to use, so I decided to try it out. What transpired was delicious magic. And guess what? Completely oil and gluten free.
So much healthy goodness!

One Ingredient-Noodles with Pumpkin-Sage Fettuccine Alfredo

Noodle Ingredient(s):
-A long vegetable, such as a carrot, parsnip, or zucchini (I used zucchini the first time, but it was smaller so I used 2 for one serving. The 2nd time I spiralized a zucchini and a carrot and it was a great mixture taste and texture wise).

Non-Food Necessities for Noodles:
-Spiralizer or Julienne Peeler or veggie peeler if you don't have either
-Blender (my Vitamix made this suuuuper creamy and smooth!)
-Steamer

Pumpkin-Sage Alfredo Ingredients:
(serves 2)
-1/2 Tbs White Miso Paste
-1 Cup Cauliflower Florets
-1 Garlic Clove or 1/2 tsp minced garlic from jar
-1/2 Tbs Apple Cider Vinegar and/or fresh lemon juice
-2 Tbs Nutritional Yeast
-2 Tbs Raw Cashews, soaked in warm water (just soak it while you prepare the steps leading up to adding this)
-1/4 Cup Canned Pumpkin (Not the kind for pie), can add more based on taste
-1/4 tsp Paprika
-1/4c warm water
-2 Tbs of my Sage Infused Tofu Cream
-Fresh Sage (about 4 leaves in the sauce and then a couple to decorate)
-Optional: Italian dried herb mix (I bought about a Tbs worth from the bulk spice section at Whole Foods)
-Optional: High quality balsamic vinegar to serve (my favorite is at William-Sonoma, aged 25 years, runs about $30 but totally worth the splurge..doesn't have that strong acidity ending most do...you will create meals just so you can use it, I promise you!)
-Himalayan Pink Salt and Cracked Pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Fill a pot with a couple inches of water and put in steamer.
2. Pour in the cup of cauliflower florets.
3. Cover pot and steam for a few minutes.
4. While cauliflower's steaming, add miso paste, garlic, apple cider vinegar, nutritional yeast, cashews, pumpkin, paprika, sage infused tofu cream, and about 4 leaves of fresh sage (Bruise your sage (scroll to bottom of entry for directions) first to help extract the sage flavors) to blender.
5. Take out steamed cauliflower and add to blender.
6. Measure about 1/4 cup of warm water (from pot if possible) and pour into blender.
7. Blend, baby, blend! In the Vitamix it only took about 30 seconds-seriously blended up so quick!
8. Taste and add a crack of pepper and very small dash of salt (the miso will salt it so taste first). After my first taste, I added a bit more paprika, couple squeezes of lemon juice, and a pinch of dried Italian herbs and then it was perfect.
9. Spiralize your ''noodle'' substitute in your spiralizer. (Or use a veggie peeler to create long, thick (width wise) noodles. You could then slice them length wise to make them thinner and long.)
10. Plate the noodles and pour the alfredo on top, topping with a few sage leaves.

Suggestion: You could also quickly cook up some seitan crumbles or vegan crumbles. I did this the first time and tossed on some Italian spice mix and it added almost like an Italian meatball flavor, it actually went quite well! I also threw the spiraled noodles into the pan for just a couple minutes to heat them up before serving.
                                             With seitan crumbles and a couple crushed up cashews

I still have quite a bit of pumpkin left. I'm going to turn it into a fluff with some coconut whipped cream...What do you like to do with left over canned pumpkin?

P.S. I'm going to a ''baking roulette'' this weekend where we're randomly assigned a country to bake from- I was assigned Swaziland. I'm having a very hard time finding traditional dessert recipes! Do any of you lovely readers know of any traditional recipes with a Swaziland history you could send my way that I could veganize? I would be forever grateful!!