I’m about 3 months away from running trotting my way through my first half-marathon. Time to get serious! I’ve been looking for some half-marathon training schedules online, and I have narrowed it down to Hal Higdon’s training schedule for novices. I’ll try not to bore you with mundane details about my workout schedule, but I’m thinking a little something like this for the rest of the week:
TUESDAY: 4-mile morning run + evening yoga class
WEDNESDAY: 3-mile morning run + evening boot camp
THURSDAY: evening spin class
FRIDAY: rest? yoga? upper-body training?
SATURDAY: 5-mile morning run + afternoon yoga
I might be over-compensating for my sedentary ways the past few weeks—filled with nothing but eating and staying put. Needless to say, I’m excited to squeeze in some strength-training and yoga this week!
To give me some fuel for the week ahead, I prepared this fresh summer pesto noodle salad for dinner yesterday. In all honesty, I got a bit excited about the bunches of basil at the farmers market and bought way too much. Not wanting these fresh beauties to go to waste, I decided to transform a large bunch of basil into a pesto.
In my opinion, all salads could use a bit of sweetness. That’s why these chopped yellow peaches and sugar-sweet cherry tomatoes have joined the salad party. If there is one thing that I want to you take away from this post (in addition to my recipe), it is to BUY CHERRY TOMATOES NOW! They’re so sweet that you’ll want to pop about 10 of them into your mouth at once, chubby chipmunk style.
Summer Pesto Noodle Salad
Ingredients
- 1 large bunch of fresh basil (~2.5 oz/~140g), leaves picked and rinsed
- 1 1/2 TBS olive oil
- 1 1/2 TBS nutritional yeast, substitute with parmesan cheese if not vegan
- 1 TBS lemon juice
- 2 tsp miso paste, optional
- 1 tsp salt, add more to taste
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1/4 cup (35g) walnut halves
- 2 large summer squash, zucchini or yellow squash (~17.5 oz/~500g)
- 1 large ripe yellow peach, peeled and diced
- 1 cup (135g) cherry tomatoes
Instructions
- In a food processor, blend the basil, oil, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, miso paste, salt, garlic, and walnuts together until smooth. Set aside.
- Spiralize the squash using Blade C. Once the squash has been spiralized, I like to give all the noodles several rough chops so that they’re easy to eat (otherwise, the noodles are too long). Chop up the parts of the squash that did not get spiralized and add them to the salad. If you do not have a spiralizer, create vegetable noodles with a julienne peeler or vegetable ribbons with a regular peeler.
- In a large bowl, toss the noodles, diced peaches, cherry tomatoes, and 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the pesto sauce together.
- Store the unused pesto and leftover salad in separate containers and refrigerate.
GiselleR @ Diary of an ExSloth says
Ugh, I need a spiralizer/julienne peeler in my life! This sounds – and looks! – soooo good 🙂
I’m gonna try this with spaghetti squash soon but I really, really want to try zucchini noodles ASAP!
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Lisa says
Thanks, Giselle!! Zucchini noodles are soo good. Try making zucchini ribbons with a vegetable peeler in the meantime!
Kelly @ The Pretty Bee: Cooking + Creating says
I have to try zucchini noodles! These look divine!
Lisa says
Thanks, Kelly! Zucchini noodles do live up to their hype, especially if you love eating vegetables as much as I do!
Emily @ Zen & Spice says
Ooo! I’ve never seen a pesto and peach combination before! That sounds really good– so summery!
Lisa says
Thanks, Emily! I was a bit hesitant to put pesto and peach together at first, but they’re great together!
Kelli @Hungry Hobby says
It’s official this looks delicious and I NEED a spiralizer!
Lisa says
Kelli, the spiralizer is pretty amazing. It does take up some storage space, but it’s well worth it for me!
Maria says
Could I blend the ingredients for the pesto? Great recipe, hope I can try it soon!
Lisa says
Yes, you should be able to! I have a cheap blender in my apartment, so when I try to make pestos in it, the ingredients tend to get stuck in the bottom. I would pour the liquid in the blender first, roughly chop the basil, and scrape the sides of the blender when things get stuck. Hope this helps!
jill conyers says
I have to try this! Any excuse to use my spiralizer 🙂
Lisa says
Let me know how it goes for you, Jill!