Cashew Satay Spiralized Vegetable Stir Fry {Paleo, Vegan}

February 17, 2016

Spice things up with a spiralized vegetable stir fry recipe! Cashew satay spiralized vegetable stir fry is easy to make and healthy, too! Spicy cashew sauce stir fried with spiralized vegetables and takes just 20 minutes to make. A quick paleo and vegan dinner recipe.

Goodness, I guess I’m on a roll with eating everything in bowls, yes? Haha. Okay I have to admit, bowls are so 2016! But so spiralizing, and I mean more than just zucchini. Zoodles are so last year. I’m kidding.

I am pretty sure I’ve spiralized just about every vegetable these days, including celeriac. Heck I even tried spiralizing eggplant. Which wasn’t the greatest idea. Don’t worry though, this spiralized vegetable bowl is actually just a combo of zucchini and yellow squash. I left the eggplant out for you. You’re welcome.

But spiralizing aside, this satay vegetable stir fry recipe does have a purpose, a point, and a story.

Purpose. To boost nutrients and lighten up a dish adding fiber filled spiralized vegetables. Yet still giving it tons of FLAVOR and pizazz, like real satay and stir fry combined. Yes I just used pizazz in a recipe post.

Point. Well, to be honest, switching up your grain and legumes is just as important as switching up your macronutrients such as fat and protein. Are you confused yet? What do I mean by this ? Well friends, I think eating healthy is a good thing, but if you eat the same thing every day, you might not being getting other KEY ingredients. Regular peanut satay sauce is very similar in calories as my cashew satay, but cashews have totally different nutrients. Peanuts are actually considered a legume and cashew a fruit (nut). Totally different in the way we digest them too. Some people cannot handle legumes very well if their gut flora is weak.

That being said, peanuts have high folate and cashews are loaded with magnesium! You see, we need both, it’s good to switch things up in the nut…um, I mean legume department. You know what I’m saying?

YAY CASHEWS!

I have more thoughts on this food variety topic come Friday. Get excited!

In the meantime, check out the cashew butter love! I made a small batch of raw cashew butter and then just added chili pepper to it to make more like satay sauce. You totally don’t have to make homemade cashew butter, I’m just cheap! LOL!

And finally, the story.

So, did you know that the Kiwi Cotter (aka husband) and I dated in Hawaii. Actually, this when I was living there and his dad had the coffee farm, but that’s a whole other long story in itself. Anyway, when we’re dating (sheesh like a over a decade ago), James always planned a weekly date night. Almost every week, almost.. .

And every week we’d explore a new restaurant or area of the island. Ahh.. those were the days.

One of our favorite places we discovered was this little hole in the wall place called Rapanui Island Cafe. This restaurant was owned by a Kiwi and served Pacific Rim foods with a heavy emphasis on foods and spices from New Zealand. Ya’ll, it was such a tiny little place with plastic chairs but oh SO SO GOOD!

Anyway, they had the most amazing satays and other Indonesian/New Zealand style dishes. They even had a wasabi peanut ball as an appetizer. OKay I’m getting off topic here.

Moral of the “story,” sometimes you just need to remember the GOOD OL’ days in food form. Amen? Sadly, that little hole in the wall restaurant is now closed.

Therefore, this spiralized vegetable stir fry recipe is my attempt to keep those memories alive!

And you know what? Good food memories make for even better recipes!