recipe: vegetarian pad thai

Okay, we are going to start this post off by saying I am so not a food blogger. However, my roommate and I definitely had fun cooking and taking photos for this post. I have a feeling that you may see more from Sam in terms of food! All right. Let's get started!

Val (my roommate) and I often make Pad Thai when we are trying to eat up some of the ingredients in our fridge. It's simple, tasty, and makes for great lunch the next day. You'll notice in this post that I don't include exact measurements for the ingredients listed, as we don't measure anything for this recipe. We just taste as we go along, and add spices as necessary.



VEGETARIAN PAD THAI

• 1 block firm tofu (I use a local organic company's)
• 1 box stir fry noodles (we used Thai Kitchen's)
• 2 eggs
• broccoli
• carrots
• orange/red/yellow/your choice of pepper
• snow peas
• bean sprouts
• half an onion (chopped finely)
• 2 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
• ginger (a couple handfuls, minced)
• hot pepper (we used a green 'finger hot' and left the seeds in etc.)
• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• a few tablespoons of peanut butter
• red chilli flakes
• green onion (for garnish)
• lime wedges (for garnish)

Step 1: Clean your kitchen up, and do dishes that have been sitting in the sink, and make your space relatively presentable to take photos. Pour giant glass of wine, put David Bowie on (loudly), and eat crackers with cheese to keep hunger at bay. Wine suggestion: Apothic Red.

Step 2: Chop onion, ginger, garlic and hot pepper. Set aside some of the garlic and ginger for your marinade for the tofu. For the tofu, cut into your size preference and put into a bowl with sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. Let sit for 10+ mins while everything else is being prepped.

Step 3: Chop remaining veggies. Really, you could put whatever you'd like into this dish; these are just our preferences.

Step 4: Turn pan on and use whichever oil you'd like. We use a large cast iron wok and olive oil. Saute garlic, ginger, onion and hot pepper on medium-high heat. Whisk eggs in a bowl, and add in a dash of soy sauce and handful of green onion.

Step 5: I like to scramble the eggs into the sauteed onion etc., but you don't end up with very large egg pieces when you're done. Alternatively, you could scramble your eggs last and combine at the last minute.

Step 6: Add in tofu and remaining veggies, with the exception of bean sprouts and snow peas. Make sure to keep everything from sticking to the bottom of the pan. When adding the tofu in, make sure to add in the remaining soy and sesame oil as this creates the base for your sauce. Let cook until your vegetables are tender. Add a few tablespoons of peanut butter and a few teaspoons of red chilli flakes into the pan, and stir until everything is coated.

Step 7: Add noodles into pan. Depending on how 'saucey' everything in the pan is, you may not have to add too much water in. We added about 2 cups of water on top of the noodles, and stirred until the noodles were coated. Then, cover pan on medium heat until noodles are soft. Once they are soft, taste, and add more soy sauce, chilli flakes, and peanut butter if necessary. Then, add snow peas and bean sprouts. Cover until they have softened, and then turn off heat.

Step 8: Garnish with green onion and lime. Enjoy with another glass of wine.

-g