No Chicken Vegan Pad Thai

I. Love. Pad. Thai. Love it! I've made one or two pad Thai dishes since becoming vegan. They were both super healthy and "noodle-free." While still good, I've decided that pad Thai is not to be messed with. It's meant to have noodles. It's meant to have chicken...well...grain-meat chicken. Vegan chicken. It's meant to have a rockin' sauce with cilantro and mung beans and crushed peanuts perched atop! Yum! This No Chicken Vegan Pad Thai has all that and a bag of chips. Featuring steamed broccoli and sliced grain-meat chicken. A robust homemade sauce coats the rice noodles, topped with crushed peanuts, mung beans and fresh cilantro. 

It's quick, simple and totally delicious. I have to make it in fairly small quantities or before I know it, I'll have devoured five servings of rice noodles. Two ounces per serving?! What is that? That seems pretty darn skimpy to me...that's all I'm saying. 

You have to try this. It's soooo good. One of my favorite dishes!

No Chicken Vegan Pad Thai

Inspired by Vegetarian Ventures

Serves 2-3

• --Sustenance--
• 1 head of broccoli, florets only and chopped
• 8 oz. dry stir-fry style rice noodles
• 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 3 vegan grain-meat chicken breasts, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
• --Sauce--
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1/8 tsp. garlic powder
• sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes
• --Toppings--
• fresh cilantro, chopped
• crushed peanuts 
• fresh bean sprouts

Begin by steaming the chopped broccoli until bright green and just tender. When ready, remove from heat and set aside until ready to use. 

Bring a medium pot of water to boil and follow the directions on the package for cooking the rice noodles. Usually this means once the water is boiling, add the noodles, remove from heat, cover and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside until ready to use.

While the noodles are doing their thing. Heat the oil in a large saute pan and and in the garlic and the sliced grain-meat chicken. Saute until the chicken is heated thoroughly and the garlic becomes fragrant. 

While the chicken is cooking, add all the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl and whisk until well combined. 

When the noodles are finished cooking, add them to the heated chicken.

Add in the broccoli and the sauce and stir everything over low heat for a minute or two to heat. 

Serve warm and topped with fresh cilantro and crushed peanuts!

Also, add fresh bean sprouts if you can find them. They're hard to come by where I'm at. 

Oh yes. Christmas Meditation – Jingle Bells Recipe Card

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Creamy Vegan Not Clam Chowder

Some of these cold, icy nights call for chowda. We've been having plenty of those nights this week. This morning, I woke up to my Subaru literally enveloped in a rock hard, thick coat of solid ice. Wonderful. Bob's morning walk was more of a morning ice skate... Thus, clam chowder time. Being vegan, I saw this as a tiny, potential obstacle. Once again though, I've discovered that I can still have the delicious things I loved as an omnivore. Everyday I become a little more confounded about why more people don't go vegan. It's fun to create new ways to make your favorite dishes without harming animals, and all with better consequences for health of the planet! Think you're leaving the world a better place for the children with your Prius? It's a good start, but being vegan would do so much more. Hippie propaganda alert! 

Moving on, have you watched the public tv channel "Create"? I've seen one of the cooking shows they feature,  Cooking with Nick Stellino, a couple times. Both times Chef Nick was making soup with a confit. He is extremely flamboyant and vivacious. Todd thinks he's obnoxious, but I adore him. He's everything I'm not...Italian, large, male, hairy...and of course super gregarious. I think that's why he appeals to me. This really has nothing to do with this post besides the confit connection. I just really wanted to share my love of Nick with you all. 

Anyways, this vegan, smoky mushroom clam chowder is ultra creamy and super thick making it very rich and hearty. It'll take your mind off the fact that you may have to jack-hammer your way into your car to get to work.

Creamy Vegan Not Clam Chowder

Inspired by Happy. Healthy. Life.

Serves 4

• --Soup Base--
• 1 cup raw cashews, soaked
• 2 medium red potatoes, cubed
• 1/2 cup plain soy creamer
• 1 cup plain soy milk
• 1 cup fresh water
• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 small yellow onion, diced
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. kelp granule seasoning(optional)
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp. powdered garlic
• 1 lemon, juiced
• splash of liquid smoke
• --Mushroom Confit--
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 10 oz. shiitake mushrooms, cut small
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 1/2 small yellow onion, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• splash of liquid smoke
• dash of kosher salt

To start, you'll need to soak the cashews. The best way to do this is overnight in the fridge, but if you're strapped for time use boiling water and soak for half an hour. When ready, drain and rinse well before use.

Next, place the cubed potatoes in a microwave safe, shallow bowl and cover with saran wrap. Microwave for about 5 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork tender. Set aside until ready to use.

Place all the soup base ingredients in a blender, including the soaked cashews and cooked potatoes. Blend on high for a couple minutes, until the mixture is silky smooth. Add additional water as needed to achieve your desired soup thickness or thinness. 

Transfer to a soup pot and heat on low, whisking occasionally.

Now it's time to make the confit. Heat the oil in a small saute pan over medium heat. Add the chopped mushrooms, celery, onion, and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes, turning the heat to medium-high. When almost finished cooking, sprinkle in the salt and the liquid smoke, to taste. Stir well. The confit is done when the celery is somewhat softened. The mushrooms and onions should be cooked thoroughly.  

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Serve a small piling of the confit in the middle of a hot bowl of the chowder and enjoy!  

Don't judge me...Lenka – All My Bells Are Ringing

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Roasted Ratatouille with Polenta

Ratatouille. It's always seemed much too fancy for me to make. Too fussy...and too intimidating.

Boy do I feel like a fool. 

Ratatouille is easy as pie and it's a straight up snazzy way to get in all those great veggies. I made it for a dinner with my dad and his better half and I thought dismally, "Oh surely they'll hate it. I'm sure it's no good." This was of course, before actually tasting it. How good could it be anyway? It's just some veggies and tomato puree, essentially. It all seemed terribly effortless. A fool. Again. 

Roasted Ratatouille with Polenta

By Katie Henry - Produce On Parade

This ratatouille is simple, delicious and downright lovely. Roasted eggplant, zucchini, yellow summer squash, and red bell pepper all roasted to perfection and perched atop a cheesy, creamy bed of polenta. Inspired by The Comfort of Cooking and theKitchn.

Ingredients

• 1 11 oz. can of tomato puree
• ½ medium yellow onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
• ½ tsp. dried thyme
• ¼ tsp. dried oregano
• ¼ tsp. kosher salt
• sprinkle of ground black pepper, to taste
• sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1 small eggplant, sliced thinly
• 1 medium zucchini, sliced thinly
• 1 yellow summer squash, sliced thinly
• 1 skinny red bell pepper, sliced thinly
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 4 cups of water
• 1 cup of dry polenta
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• ½ up nutritional yeast

Instructions

1. Start by pouring the tomato puree into a medium baking dish. Scatter the diced onion and garlic evenly on the bottom of the dish, on top of the puree. Atop that, evenly scatter the herbs, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.
2. Preheat oven to 375° F. Slice up all the vegetables into very thin disks. Then, starting with two disks of eggplant layer atop that, two disks of zucchini, two of the squash, and followed by one of the bell pepper. When layering, ensure only a small crescent of the bottom vegetable disk is showing. Repeat until all the vegetables are used up. The vegetables may have to be in stacked lines atop one another and that's okay. It doesn't have to be perfect.
3. Drizzle the veggies with olive oil and a little dried herbs. Cover with a sheet of parchment paper and bake for about 50 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling up and the vegetables are cooked.
4. Bring the water and salt to boil over high heat. Add in the polenta and whisk vigorously, until it's thickened slightly. Then, turn down to low and cover. Every 10 minutes, stir vigorously scraping along the bottom and sides. Cook for about 40 minutes, or until it's smooth and thick. Remove from heat and stir in the nutritional yeast.
5. Serve the ratatouille over the polenta. Drizzle with a little olive oil if you want!

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 00:50
Total time: 01:10
Yield: 6-8 servings

Head bobbin' to Eliza Doolittle – Skinny Genes