Experimental Peanut Sauce

So, I like Pad Thai, but I know restaurants usually use fish sauce - which, a) yuck, and b) not vegetarian. Also, there's often a weird flavor kind of lurking in the background of Pad Thai that I can't identify but don't really like.

So, I said, hey, I can make a thing that's kind of like Pad Thai only without the stuff I don't really like, and well, it probably won't be all that much like Pad Thai, but I'll like it.



Here's the ingredient list:
Crunchy peanut butter
Coconut milk
2 limes
half-and-half or milk
1 small red pepper, diced
fresh spinach
2 eggs
sugar
cayenne pepper

So, for the sauce, I mixed up some crunchy peanut butter, coconut milk (I used reduced-fat for both of those), and the juice of 2 limes in a small saucepan, & started heating it. I wanted to make it creamier without more coconut flavor, so I added some fat-free half & half. Then I thought it should be sweeter, so I added a bit of sugar, & finished it off with some cayenne pepper (spice of the gods!).

I'm not so great at telling you exactly what the proportions were, since I just put stuff in the pan and adjust as seems necessary. But what I ended up with was probably about a cup of sauce, and it was a rather thick, creamy texture.

At the same time I was boiling water for the noodles, I started sauteing a diced red pepper in a small skillet. When the pepper was almost cooked, I scrambled in 2 eggs with it.

I used rice noodles, which don't take long to cook (3 or 4 minutes) and when they were almost cooked, I added some fresh spinach I had left over.

Drained the noodles, and mixed it all up. It was good! Not all that much like Pad Thai, but hey, I wasn't trying to make Pad Thai, I just wanted some peanut sauce. I really like the nutty-sweet-tangy combo. And it was great warmed up for breakfast this morning!

The Pasta Mom Likes

My parents were here this weekend and Mom specifically requested this pasta dish, which I served to her once a while back. Hey, if Mom likes it, it must be good!

This one isn't anything too groundbreaking, but it's good stuff. It's kind of a combo of AAA Pasta and my most recent Rice Dish - it's got the veggies from Rice Dish & the sauce from AAA Pasta, plus smoked mozzarella.



So here's what's in it:

1 box of pasta (I used the wheat blend stuff, which is pretty good)
2 big tomatoes, peeled, cored & chopped up
1 can artichoke hearts, chopped
1 10-oz. bag fresh spinach
1 braid smoked mozzarella, cubed
mayo
garlic
cayenne pepper
salt

Here's a tip for using fresh spinach in a pasta dish - one minute before the pasta is going to be done, just toss the spinach in with it & stir it around. The brief time in the boiling water will soften it up, but not cook the life out of it. Then you can drain it in the colander with the pasta. Easy & saves a pan!

Also, in case you don't know the easy way to peel tomatoes: put them in a bowl & pour boiling water over them. Let them sit for a minute, then the skins will slip right off.

So anyway, it's another "mix them all up together" dish, with the mayo, garlic, cayenne, & salt to taste. Enjoy, it's awesome! Mom thinks so too!

Sweet Beans & Rice Soup

My mom makes rice soup sometimes, which is just rice & milk, lightly sweetened. It's awesome, a good breakfast (or dinner), and cheap.

I was at the Oriental Market in Davenport (my new favorite store, they have canned bubble tea!!!) and picked up a few cans of tiny sweetened red beans. Red beans figure heavily in some Asian desserts, and if you've never had sweet red beans, you are missing out! I thought they'd be good in rice soup, and I was right.



This is 3-1/2 cups (cooked) brown rice, a can of mashed sweet red beans (they come already mashed, roughly the consistency of refried beans), and some milk (enough to make it soupy but not too milky). The beans are already sweetened in the can, so there was no need to add any additional sweetener.

I made it last night & put it in the fridge, and it'll last me most of the week for breakfast. This morning I warmed up a bowl in the microwave and cut up a banana on top. It was so delicious & kept me going for a long time!

Here's what the cans of tiny sweet red beans look like. I used the one on the left, the mashed beans - the one on the right contains unmashed beans. Probably either would work well for this.

Experimental Ricotta Pasta Sauce

I had a pasta dish at a restaurant that had Alfredo sauce with tomatoes on top, and the tomatoes were really basily and garlicky, and it was super good, and I wanted to try something like it at home. Except I know Alfredo is the delicious sauce of the devil and I pretty much never eat it except on special occasions. Alfredo has like 800 grams of fat a serving, I just can't justify it even though I love it.

So I thought, hey, I can make something that kind of approximates Alfredo with ricotta, parmesan, and milk, right? And then put some basily-garlicky tomatoes on top?



Well, it wasn't all that much like Alfredo sauce, but it was still really good. The end result tasted more like mushed-up lasagna. Hey, lasagna is good stuff though. I liked it.

Here's what I did.

First, I drained one can of petite-diced tomatoes & added a bunch of garlic (the kind from the jar) and basil (I used fresh because it looked nice at the store, but you can use the kind from the jar if you want) and a little salt & pepper. I did this a couple hours ahead of time & stuck it in the fridge, but that wouldn't be absolutely necessary.

Then at dinner time, I started the pasta water heating & dumped a container of low-fat ricotta in a pot & turned the fire on pretty low. I stirred in a hefty handful of grated parmesan cheese & a dash of 2% milk, then I decided it wasn't saucy enough & put in some more milk - it was maybe 1/2 cup all told. I threw in a smidge of garlic & a little salt & pepper. This mixture needed to be stirred a lot so it didn't bubble or burn. I just kept it over low heat the whole time the pasta was cooking.

Right when I put the pasta in the water, I put the tomato mixture in a small pot over a pretty high fire, to warm it up & cook off a little liquid. Stir occasionally.

I served it as above, with the tomatoes on top of the ricotta sauce, but I just ended up mixing it all together. It was delicious! If I do it again, I will add more parmesan - maybe a handful and a half. :) It tasted really parmesany in the pot, but when all the stuff was mixed together, I think the other flavors overwhelmed the parmesan a little & you couldn't really taste it.

Using 3 pots to make one dish is more complex than I usually bother with! But it was worth it, and I had yummy leftovers for lunch today.

Rice Dish

Oh Rice Dish, I love you so. You're a versatile and delicious way to use the spinach that's been in the freezer just a smidge too long and the can of artichoke hearts I've been storing on the counter because I have crap cupboard space. Not enough spaghetti sauce in the jar for a whole bowl of spaghetti? Rice Dish, you welcome the spaghetti sauce. Slightly freezer-burned veggie burgers? Rice Dish says bring 'em on.

Here's today's Rice Dish:



It included:

3 cups (cooked) Trader Joe's Rice Medley (Brown rice, black barley, & daikon radish seeds. Trader Joe, can we talk for a sec? Please come to the Quad Cities. I love you as much as I love Rice Dish. I'm not in Chicago often enough to satisfy the Trader Joe's jones. Please, please, we need you.)
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 can artichoke hearts, chopped
1 box frozen spinach, thawed & drained
1 package Morningstar Farms Chik'n Strips

I love dishes where you get all your essential food groups in one bowl. And Rice Dish is so kickass. Pretty much any vegetable is going to work, and you can add pretty much any protein (various fake meats, chopped hardboiled eggs, tofu, cheese, seitan, etc.). I usually season with Lemon Pepper (I did with this one), but sometimes I go for vegetable broth powder (sparingly) instead.

Oh yeah, the instructions are: mix them all up in a big bowl. Yay!

Rice Dish, I'm inviting you over again soon.

Experimental Fruit Salad

This fruit salad came to me in a dream....

I had a dream that I made a fruit salad & used the dressing I like to use on bean salad - mayo, lime & cayenne pepper. I woke up and said, wow, that sounds good. Except I'm not sure about mayo on fruit salad. And I overuse mayo as a dressing as it is. How about yogurt instead?

It worked!



(Do my food pictures look OK? I think the food generally looks better in person. Believe me though, I would not post it here if it didn't taste awesome.)

Anyway, here's what I used:

1 mini watermelon (or a few cups of regular watermelon)
2 mangoes
1 peach
some red seedless grapes
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 large or 2 small limes
cayenne pepper to taste

My favorite kind of instructions apply: mix them up!

You might want to lower the dressing-to-fruit ratio a smidge; it was kind of soupy (I actually used 2 largeish limes), but the dressing was really good so I didn't mind. Add cayenne carefully: the heat increases as it sits, especially in liquid. I was pretty generous with it and the salad ended up very hot, but I love spicy so it was all good.

I'm sure the spicy-tangy-sweet thing is not for everyone. You could leave out the cayenne if you don't like spicy or if it doesn't seem like the thing for you. But it's what really makes the salad unique. Yum!!

Avocado Bagel

Ooh, hooray! One of the avocados I bought on Saturday was ripe today. So I got to make one of my very favorite lunches, Avocado Bagel!



This here is one Everything Bagel, toasted, with fresh avo smooshed on. You just cut your avocado in half lengthwise, remove the pit, and scoop out the good stuff with a spoon. Then put half on each half of the bagel & smoosh it with the back of the spoon so it's kind of spready. Sprinkle some salt and pepper, and ta-da, delicious lunch! I LOVE IT!

Hardest part: Choosing a good avocado. I never buy ripe ones at the store, because they're too likely to be bad when you need them. I buy them in advance of when I'll need them & let them ripen at home. I also always buy more avocados than I need - right now I have 2 bagels in my fridge, so I bought 3 avocados because you never know when one won't be good - they are so mysterious with their opaque rinds! If I end up with an extra good avocado, I mash it with some lemon juice, salt & pepper for a quick guacamole snack.