Thai Noodle Salad

As we all know by now - Thai frequents our kitchen often.  Instead of typical Phad-Thai, I wanted to make something a little fresher and a bit lighter.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pkg Thai Rice Noodles
• Head of Broccoli - cut into florets
• Mango - cubed
• Large carrot - shredded
• 2 green onions
• Handful of bean sprouts
• Handful of peanuts - crushed
• Lime juice
• Tablespoon of peanut butter
• Rice Vinegar
• Fish Sauce
• Dash of Sriracha (aka Rooster Hot Sauce)
• Sesame Oil

I apologize for the lack of measurement of ingredients - but I kinda made this one up as I went along.

Bring a pot of water to boil, then take off the heat and dump in the rice noodles. Let the noodles soak and get happy for about 10 minutes, and throw in the broccoli during the last 5 minutes or so.  This gives you enough time to prep the remaining ingredients. 

I like to prep my carrots by thinly peeling them with a vegetable peeler.  It gives a great thin piece of carrot.

Mix together the carrot, mango cubes, green onion, bean sprouts & peanuts in a small bowl.

In another small dish, whisk together peanut butter, few tablespoons of lime juice, dash of fish sauce, dash of sesame oil, teaspoon or so of rice vinegar, and just a dash of the hot sauce.  Stir this into the drained broccoli noodle mixture.

Serve the veggie salad on top of a bed of the warm noodles & broccoli. 

This was a refreshing dish that had a great blend of flavors & textures and was 100% vegetarian! 

Shrimp Phad Thai

 
Nope, this photo is not of take-out, we actually cooked tonight!

Pretty simple mix of shrimp, zucchini, rice noodles, a packet of phad thai spice mix, bean sprouts, peanuts & lime. I have never used a packet of seasoning for my phad-thai but out of interest of the grocery budget, I decided to try something new.  It's very similar to a packet of taco seasoning, but found in the Asian section of the grocery store.  Normally I try and track down all the ingredients, but decided to opt for simple today.

It was nice to have a dinner at home for once. Only two more weeks of travel, and a few more weeks of crazy hours and things will be back to normal.

Thai Shrimp & Coconut Soup with Noodles

As mentioned in a previous post - I love Thai flavors - and so after a brief hunt on the internet, I came across this recipe that sounded like a deliciously easy meal.

I made a few simple modifications:

• Used lite coconut milk rather than regular coconut milk (found in the asian section of any regular grocery store)
• 1 lb of shrimp rather than the requested chicken
• 3/4 box of rice thai stirfry noodles (found in the same area as the coconut milk). Since I used the rice noodles, they cook a bit different. I soaked them in hot water per the box preparation instructions, but drained them while they were still a bit crisp.  I didn't want them to become too soggy when added to the additional liquid of the soup.
• And by accident I used 2 cans of coconut milk instead of 2 cups - probably just created a more soupy consistency - I never would have known that I messed up until re-reading the recipe just now - oops!

And on another shopping note - fish sauce is typically not a common household ingredient, but I tend to keep it on hand in the fridge to add a salty flavor to any thai flavored dish (especially homemade pad thai).  It's easy to find in any regular grocery store in the same area as the coconut milk and noodles - no need to go to a specialty store.

With the noodles, the soup was definitely filling enough to be our main course. Start to finish perhaps took us about 20 minutes - very speedy and could almost pass for the taste of take-out.