07.11.12_Veggie Tales Pad Thai

I have been making this dish since my second year of college. Now that I think about it, I think I have made this dish more than anything else actually. I call it "Pad Thai" because it was what I was attempting to make in the quickest and easiest way at the time but Thai Peanut-Buttery noodles may be more appropriate. Over the years the recipe has changed a little, and depending on my mood I included different things, but overall the basics have stayed the same. Noodles, a peanut butter-based sauce, and a protein. I got the inspiration after watching an episode of a cooking show on Food Network (I can't even remember which one now as its been too long) and then combined several different recipes, eventually ending up with my own. This dish has always been one of my "go-to" meals when I need something super quick and incredibly easy but still delicious and fresh. Because of our new-found love for seitan (we have now used it 3 times in the past 2 weeks, see CPK Copycat BBQ Chik'n Chopped Salad), we decided to use it in my Pad Thai. In my opinion seitan has an Asian undertone (at least the brand we buy) so I thought it worked incredibly well in this dish. The recipe can be made vegan using the right kind of noodles and omitting the egg.

Veggie Tales "Pad Thai"
Serves 2-3

• 1 box of Pad Thai noodles (Fettuccine also works)
• 1 box of seitan or any protein you want
• 2 TBSP peanut butter
• 2 TBSP rice wine vinegar
• 2 TBSP tamari or soy sauce
• 2 TBSP warm water
• 1/2 tsp red chili flakes
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Optional ingredients and garnishes:

• 1/2 cup crushed peanuts
• 1 egg
• handful of mung bean sprouts
• shredded carrots

1. Combine the tamari, rice wine vinegar, water and red chili flakes in a medium size bowl. Marinate the seitan in the mixture for 30mins to an hour.

2. Bring large pot of water to a boil and cook noodles according to package. Pad Thai noodles typically take 4-5 minutes.

3. Remove seitan from sauce with a slotted spoon and cook in a small skillet over medium-high heat, until seitan is warm all the way through. Do not get rid of the sauce as you will be using it to dress the noodles later. 

4. If you are using egg, mix it in a bowl before cook it in the same pan.

5. Whisk the peanut butter into the tamari, rice wine vinegar, and water mixture until the peanut butter has broken down and formed a sauce. If the sauce seems too thick, feel free to add more tamari or water.

6. Drain the noodles and combine them with the sauce and seitan. Toss in the cilantro, saving a little bit for garnish.

7. Add any of the additional toppings and enjoy. Serve with a side of steamed edamame! 

01.31.12_(Not so) Drunken Noodles

Ok so this recipe is nothing like Drunken Noodles, rather noodles I made drunk the other day. I'm so clever, I know. Phillip and I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather on Tuesday and go to a Happy Hour where we could sit outside and have a drink after work. By the time we got home I did not want to make some elaborate dish. I had found this recipe for Fiery Noodles that basically consisted of noodles, peppers, and a sauce made from chili paste. We thought this would be a good day to try them since it would be quick and require very little knife work after a couple of drinks.

As always we decided we wanted leftovers so we used an entire pound of pasta. While waiting for the water to boil, I sliced two bell peppers (we used a yellow and a red) and minced two cloves of garlic. Next I made the sauce, following the recipe I had found. I looked at the amount of sauce, looked at the pound of pasta boiling, and knew there was no way it was going to be enough. Our sauce was also not nearly as red as the pictures from the recipe post. I decided it was time to just improvise and see how it turned out. I ended up adding Sriracha and adjusted the amounts of all the other ingredients until I was satisfied with the amount and flavor of the sauce.

In the end I used:

• 1/4 cup of soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tsp roasted red chili paste
• 2 tsp Sriracha
• 1/4 tsp of red chili flakes
• 1/4 cup chopped peanuts (for garnish)
• cilantro (for garnish)

The noodles were super tasty and we had a ton of leftovers (as expected). We served the noodles with veggie dumplings I had in the freezer. Obviously not a groundbreaking recipe but a tasty, quick and easy one to keep in your arsenal for an easy (drunk) weekday meal.

08.04.11_Sesame Noodles with Tofu

Confession: I learned almost everything I know about cooking from the Food Network. I had it on basically 24/7 in college unless I was in class or watching another one of my shows that I regularly watch. Rachael Ray specifically taught me a lot of great tips and easy techniques that I use all the time. Sadly the days of Ray Ray teaching me new things seems to be over, as I am now more than fully aware that nutmeg is that little something in the background that makes you go "Hmmm what is that?" and that a Stoup is thinner than a stew but thicker than a soup. Get it? Stoup? That being said, since I have been having to look up actual recipes this month I thought Rachael Ray would be a good person to look to for fast and easy meals since that is what she is known for after all.

 After searing for "vegetarian" on foodnetwork.com and narrowing my search results down to show only Rachael Ray recipes I found her recipe for Sesame Noodles. As the recipe shows, they were extremely straight forward and super simple. The recipe was actually meant to be for a side dish so I just tripled the recipe so I could use a whole box of pasta and to make enough for an entree.

To add some protein into the mix we decided to try and cook tofu, something I had never cooked with before. Deciding on which tofu to buy was quite the scene. Phillip and I went to Whole Foods and were not at all prepared for the plethora of options that were presented to us. We ended up buying extra firm tofu based on my rationale that "if I'm going to be sauteing this, I want it to be firm so that it doesn't fall apart." Extra firm also had the fewest number of boxes left on the shelf so we figured if everyone else was buying it, we should too.

After watching a video online no how to prepare tofu, I was ready to go. It was easy enough, same as cooking chicken or any other protein. I added the sauteed tofu in with the sesame noodles and served the with a side of steamed edamame.

A few things I would do different next time:
1) The noodles themselves did not come out as flavorful as I had hoped. I found this to be odd especially after comparing the colors of my sesame noodles to the picture on Food Network's website. My noodles came out a much darker brown so I assumed I had more sauce and therefore more flavor. When we heated up the leftovers I added some more soy sauce and a little more sesame oil and found them to be more enjoyable.

2) I would put the tofu directly into the sauce before mixing the sauce into the noodles. Since tofu is like a sponge it absorbs any flavors that you put it with. Because I had dressed the noddles with the sauce prior to adding the tofu, there was not much left for the tofu to absorb. By putting the tofu into the sauce first, it would have much more flavor and taste less like plan sauteed tofu.