I am not usually a winner at anything. I love playing BINGO and black jack but I never win. I enter giveaways on magazine websites and Rafflcopters on my fave websites-nothing. I used to play pool and I was horrible…it was fun, but I never won. But. I won this book from a giveaway on PETA.org last month-I won!! So excited! A new cookbook! Here is my recipe from Nut Butter Universe – Pad Thai.
I am sure you have seen reviews of the book, Nut Butter Universe by Robin Robertson, around the internet-it has inundated all the food websites. I won mine, and then it kind of sat there on my table staring at me. It is definitely intimidating. All the recipes are nut based, or nut butter based. I have never made my own nut butter and I don’t use nuts often in my recipes…very, very rarely. It is one of my weird food things. I don’t mix nuts with regular food, just like I don’t mix fruit and veggies. It just seems weird. But I won the book so I had to try something from it!
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I tried two recipes. The first was cashew frosting which will be in a future recipe. The second was the Pad Thai. This is one recipe that I have tried before but with way less peanut butter so it tasted more sweetly-vinegary then peanut-buttery. I think this recipe was a whole lot better than my other one, because too much vinegar is not necessarily a good thing. Also the NBU recipe doesn’t use sugar which I love, and the other recipe used brown sugar. I didn’t realize then that you don’t need sugar in it!
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So I didn’t want to copy a recipe perfectly, I just couldn’t do it. It is not in me to conform. I changed a few things in the original sauce part of the recipe only because I did not have a few of the items. The recipe called for cayenne and I used red pepper flakes; real garlic and I used jarred minced; fresh ginger and I used jarred; and linguine and I used rice noodles. The biggest change to the recipe was using a ton more veggies. I used two bags frozen mixed veggies and one frozen spinach and I think that was the best decision that I could have made. The original recipe called for some carrots and a red pepper only.
I am glad I used way more veggies than what was listed in the recipe. I think that all that peanut butter with just a little bit of carrots and red pepper would have so overwhelmed everything that it wouldn’t have been enjoyable…and I do love my peanut butter! Also, using a couple bags of frozen veggies and spinach made this into a real healthful meal, not just a little carbalicious meal of just noodles.
Nut Butter Universe Pad Thai, 7 servings
1/2 C Peanut Butter
4 Tsp Tamari
2 Tbsp Rice Vinegar
1/4 Tsp Red Pepper Flakes
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1 Tsp Ginger
1/2 C Water
1 Pkg Rice Noodles
1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
2 Pkgs Frozen Mixed Veggies
1 Pkg Frozen Spinach, defrosted and drained well
1 Pkg Frozen Edamame
½ Tsp Salt
1 Bunch Green Onions, washed and chopped
- Microwave bags of veggies and spinach. About 6 minutes. Be sure to put box of spinach in microwaveable bowl so it doesn’t leak all over the microwave.
- In small microwavable bowl pour in peanut butter, tamari, vinegar, red pepper flakes, garlic, ginger and water. Mash peanut butter into ingredients. Microwave for about two minutes and mix well.
- In large pot boil water and drop in rice noodles. Boil as directed (mine was only 3 minutes) then drain. Let sit in strainer.
- In large pot add both packages mixed veggies, chopped green onions and spinach. Sauté with a little oil until heated through.
- While noodles are still in strainer add the tablespoon of sesame oil to noodles. Using a fork and knife I cut my noodles into small pieces. Drop into pot.
- Combine veggies and noodles. Add sauce mix. Blend well.
- Portion out. Add a few peanuts to the top.
- Enjoy!
This looks like a recipe my husband would LOVE!
I’m not sure why, but I’m always scared to cook with peanut butter. But this looks delicious!
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