easy and delicious dinner

After my shopping trip yesterday, I was excited to play around with new ingredients and try to come up with a few new recipes. With Jenna as my test subject, I set out to create an easy and spicy pad thai. It was so simple! This recipe is full of flavor and will take under 25 minutes to create. As you know, I rarely measure out ingredients for things like this, I just eyeball it. With the amounts that I used here, it created one large bowl of pad thai, which Jenna and I were able to split and be completely satisfied! 

Before we begin, here is what you'll need: Pad Thai noodles (I used whole wheat and I didn't even see a difference!), snow peas, boiled and shelled edamame, asparagus, cilantro, peanuts, a couple little bits of ginger, Seitan (a gluten-based meat substitute), and Szechuan marinade. Obviously, you can tweak this recipe to include vegetables that you like as well! I want to try it with tomatoes and carrots next time!

1. Soak your noodles. Place them (completely covered) in hot water for 8-10 minutes.

2. Prepare your veggies. While the noodles are soaking, de-string your snow peas and chop up your asparagus, ginger and cilantro.

3. Brown your "meat". Place the Seitan in a pot with a tiny bit of olive oil. Let it brown for about 3 minutes on high heat, flipping it to brown on both sides. 

4. Add your veggies. Add them slowly, beginning with the veggies that will take a little longer to cook. Leave out the peanuts for now! Make sure to stir the ginger around so that the flavor with spread to all of the veggies and the Seitan. Keeping the heat on high, this should take only about 4 minutes. 

5. Add the noodles. Drain your noodles and then toss them into the mixture as well. Stir often, the pad thai noodles WILL stick to each other.

6. After 2 or 3 more minutes, add your sauce. Add a little bit at first, mix, and see what the coverage looks like. If your stir fry is getting a little dry, don't be afraid to add a little bit of water or more sauce. Just don't add TOO much sauce, it can get a little salty. Before dishing it out, remove the ginger. Most people wouldn't be too happy biting into a gigantic piece of ginger.

There you have it! This meal was so delicious. If you like a little extra spice, some Sriracha sauce goes really well with it. Also, this dish pairs really well with some Ginger Beer. (One of my favorites!) 

Happy munching!

xo, e.m.