Low Fat Vegan Pad Thai, with Raw Vegan Option

I am a huge fan of Thai food. I love the spices, the creamy sauces, and the heat that comes with most meals. Also I love the fact that they tend to stay away from using meat in most dishes. They love using lentils, beans and vegetables to make up most of their dishes, something that I am very familiar with!

I have wanted to make a Pad Thai for a very long time, but never felt the drive to go for it. Knowing that the Pad Thai I used to eat was amazing, I was a little apprehensive on making a vegan version. But that all changed when I got a major craving for it and just had to make it for supper!

I have seen multiple recipes online for vegan and raw vegan versions and none really stuck with me. They all looked pretty but the ingredients didn’t really entice me to make them. So surprise, surprise I came up with my own! Wanting a challenge I really wanted to make this as low fat as possible. Knowing that anything with coconut milk, peanut butter and noodles tastes great. So I really thought about what was going into this dish and how I could substitute out the high fat things for low fat things!

The first to be subbed out were the noodles. I knew from the beginning that I was going to make mine with zucchini and skip the rice noodles. Not that they are bad for you, just that the zucchini noodles are a healthier choice! Next was the sauce. Traditionally Pad Thai sauce is made from oyster and fish sauce, two things that we vegans cannot eat! So what would give that taste?..... *light bulb* Nori papers! They have that fishy taste because they are made from seaweed and they would blend really nicely into a sauce without changing the texture. Now to give the sauce some substance! I wanted to go for a creamy version of Pad Thai and skip out on the Worcestershire Sauce, Soy Sauce and anything else high in salt and unknown ingredients. Well why not use another zucchini? That would make it creamy without having to add any non-dairy milk.

Results? Fantastic! It had a great nutty flavour, with a hint of spice right at the end from the red pepper flakes. But what is really awesome about this dish is that it can be raw too! So you now have the option of having a raw dish or a cooked one. Two for one here folks!

Low Fat Vegan Pad Thai

-       1 medium zucchini, spagettified with a mandolin or spiralizer

-       2 carrots, shredded

-       2 cups bean sprouts

-       1 cups broccoli, chopped

-       2 green onions, chopped

-       crushed unsalted peanuts

-       lime juice, garnish

Pad Thai Sauce

-       2 limes, juiced

-       1 nori paper

-       1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

-       2 tbsp peanut butter

-       1 clove garlic

-       1 small zucchini

-       2 tsp Red pepper flakes

Place all ingredients into a blender and puree until smooth.

In a large skillet steam the carrots, broccoli and onions with a little water until almost fork tender (about 7-10 mins) toss in the zucchini, sprouts and sauce and cook for another 10 minutes. Add crushed peanuts and lime. Enjoy!

Raw version!

Don’t cook any of it! Use your favourite raw nut butter and raw nori paper in the sauce. Toss all ingredients together and enjoy!!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo -N

Lemon Dill Tomato Sauce with Zucchini Noodles

After that life changing curry dish (well, for me it was) I was thinking that the curry sauce is something that could be made to taste like anything. You could omit the curry and add something totally different, and BAM you got yourself a whole new sauce. So what did I want? Sweet, savory, spicy? I wasn’t sure. That was until I was walking through Safeway and for some reason the flavor of dill popped into my head. Mmm dill… that sounds delicious, I haven’t had anything with dill for a very long time and it is one of my favourite spices. Now what? Dill and… dill and… dill and…lemon! So simple yet so perfect. Lemon dill tomato sauce, with zucchini noodles sounds like an awesome supper.

When I got home from Safeway (after scoring 5 bunches of bananas for $4.50, woo hoo!) I started on my dish and boy did it smell good. I don’t know what it is about dill that just screams awesomeness but it does. Like the curry sauce it has a rich, creamy flavor that some people might be surprised to learn that there is no milk or cream involved. That is one of the benefits of blending your sauces, they come out smooth and creamy without the added fat! I also decided to serve this with some steamed broccoli to add some color, body and extra nutrients to the dish. I could have totally eaten the sauce by itself, its that good, but its nice to have texture and color in my meals, and what a better steamed veggie than broccoli! I hope you enjoy this meal as much as I did!



This is what the sauce looks like before you blend it!

Ingredients 2-4 Servings

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

1 clove garlic, sliced

1 large can of whole tomatoes, chopped in half

½ cup cashews, soaked overnight

1 lemon, juiced

5-7 sprigs of dill, de-stemmed and chopped

Pepper to taste

1 head of broccoli, chopped

In a large frying pan on medium/high heat sauté onions in oil for 10 mins until brown. Add the rest of ingredients and simmer for 15-20 mins. Pour into high speed blender and puree until smooth. While this is cooking, steam broccoli until fork tender.

Zucchini Noodles

1 zucchini per person

Using the julienne blade of a mandolin, slice zucchini lengthwise into long, thin strands. Slice the zucchini just until you reach the seeds in the middle and then stop (the seeds will cause the noodles to fall apart).

NOTE: If you don't have a mandolin you can use a vegetable peeler or a knife.  

If you want the noodles to be hot, put the noodles into the frying pan with desired amount of sauce and cook for 5 mins and serve with broccoli! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

Vegan Cashew Curry Sitr Fry

You know those days where you eat at like 3:30 in the afternoon and when supper comes along you don’t feel hungry but you still feel like you should eat something? That is what happened the night I made this. It was 8:00 and I was searching the kitchen for something to eat and was coming up with nothing. Not that we didn’t have any food in the house, I just was being indecisive about what I wanted. So I walked back into the living room and started to watch You Gotta Eat Here and what came on has changed my life forever!

It was a recipe for Cashew Curry sauce that was vegan! Holy Moly it looked amazing and really easy to make. I was super intrigued and it even caught the eye of Devon, the curry hater. So now I was torn, because it was 8:20 and kind of late to be making supper but I really, really, really wanted to make this… sooo I did! We decided to serve it over rice, and we were kind of pumped because we found white rice in the cupboard, something we haven’t had in a long time.

The whole meal only took around 35 minutes to make and it was well worth it. My thoughts of eating so late were silenced by the amazing flavours this supper had. I think I said “I love this” about 8 times while eating it, and now as I type this I am thinking about making it again for supper tonight. The sauce is creamy, thick, FULL of rich flavor and its not that high in fat which is a HUGE bonus. Aside from the oil there is only the cashews in the sauce which add fat, there is no milk or cream, the usual culprits in fatty sauces.

The only changes I made to the sauce from the show was that I reduced the cashews from one cup to ½, I didn’t put in cinnamon and nutmeg, and she used 2 large onions and no spinach. As I was making it I thought that 2 onions was a bit much, so what would be a good substitute for it? I didn’t want to add more cashews and I didn’t want to add something that would drastically change the flavor of the dish. That’s why spinach works so well, it adds great color, nutrients and body to the sauce without having to sacrifice any flavour or add any extra fat. It’s really a win, win here!

If you are a curry fan or are someone who is interested in trying it, I would say you NEED to try this! It wont disappoint you or your family and friends. Enjoy!  

Ingredients: 2 - 4 people

Cashew Curry Sauce

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 large yellow onion

½ cup of cashews, soaked overnight or for at least 4 hours

1 sm can of tomato paste

1 ½ cups of water

2 cups fresh spinach

2 tbsp curry powder

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp coriander

Red pepper flakes to taste

Heat up large frying pan, add oil. Sauté onions until they are golden brown, about 15 minutes on med heat. In a bowl whisk together the tomato paste and water until well blended, add to frying pan and stir in. Add in all spices, spinach and cashews cook for 10 minutes. Pour into a high speed blender and blend until smooth.

Stir Fry Vegetables and Rice

1 cup of rice

2 cups of water

2 tsp of oil

1 head broccoli

½ head cauliflower

4 stalks celery

½ sm. container white mushrooms

1 clove garlic, minced

½ cup water

While the onions are cooking, I chopped up all of my vegetable and cooked my rice. Sauté the vegetables and garlic until fork tender, about 10 minutes. You could have these cooking in a separate frying pan while the cashew sauce is cooking, to save on time.

Add sauce to the vegetables in the frying pan, and stir in. I try not to waste anything, so after I am done pouring the sauce out, I take ½ cup of water and add it back into the blender, turn it on high to get all the sauce off the sides and pour it back into the pan. Just to make sure its all in!

Serve over rice, quinoa or noodles! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!
xoxo -N

Pineapple Ginger Stir Fry Revised

When ever I make a stir fry I tend to get carried away with my vegetable proportions. My eyes have always been bigger than my stomach and I chop up way to many veggies which always leads to left overs. Yumm!

Two nights ago was no exception. I had chopped too much that it all couldn't fit into our large cast iron pan. Luckily Devon and I don't mind having the same thing two days in a row, I actually like it because it makes meal planning easier!

So there I was last night chopping up more vegetables and pineapple for another stir fry and I think to myself that I was out of cashews and rice. Crap. Well I just won't have cashews then and I will sub in brown rice vermicelli noodles instead! Then I got to thinking about making a sauce, something similar to last night's but different. I still had ginger and pineapple.... what else. ..? Date caramel sauce?.... Yay I think so!

I acquired this amazing sauce from my sister Ashley who had found it when she went down in the States in January. She had already eaten half of the jar and wanted it out of her house, so I was the lucky recipient. It’s a super thick, sweet, sticky sauce that is made out of just organic dates, organic caramel extract and sea salt. I have used this on top of my bananas, apples and on even on ice cream, it’s that good. This was the magical ingredient that was going to put my sauce over the top.

 

Results? Best sauce ever! Devon and I loved it. I wont lie though, I was tempted to eat the whole stir fry to myself but I am a nice person and saved some for Devon.

.

Ingredients
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 head of broccoli, chopped
1/4 head of cauliflower, chopped
5 stalks of celery, chopped
5-7 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 fresh pineapple, chopped (minus a large handful)
1 small can of baby corn (optional)
1 tbsp Better Than Bouillon broth, vegetable flavor
1/2 cup of water

 

Sauce
Large handful of pineapple
Ginger thumb sized, grated
1 tbsp Date Caramel Sauce
1 tsp soya sauce
1/2 cup of water
Salt and pepper to taste
Chop up all vegetables and fruit. Put aside a large handful of pineapple. Heat up a large frying pan on medium/high, add oil. Once melted add garlic and onions, sauté for 5 mins until browned. Add broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and sauté for 10 mins. Dissolve broth in water and add to pan. Add mushrooms, pineapple, and corn. Continue cooking until vegetables are fork tender.

With your hands squeeze the juice out of the pineapple, place all ingriedients (including the pineapple pulp) in a small sauce pan and put on medium/high heat. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, let simmer until its reduced to a thicker consistancy. Pour into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour over stir fry and serve.

*If you don't have the date caramel sauce, this version wont be as sweet*

Sauce
Large handful of pineapple
Ginger thumb sized, grated
3 large, soaked majool dates, diced
1 tbsp of you favourite sweetener (vanilla, stevia)
1 tsp soya sauce1/2 -1 cup of water
Salt and pepper to taste

In a high speed blender blend the 3 dates with the water, adding a little water, bit by bit until its running smooth then add sweetener. Try to avoid using too much water, you want it to be a paste not a liquid. With your hands squeeze the juice out of the pineapple, place all ingriedients (including the pineapple pulp) in a small sauce pan and put on medium/high heat. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, let simmer until its reduced to a thicker consistancy. Pour into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour over stir fry and serve.
Serve over rice, quinoa, or rice noodles! And Enjoy!!


Thanks for reading!
Xoxo -N

 

Pineapple Cashew Ginger Stir Fry

While walking through the grocery store yesterday, I was completely lost on what to make for supper. Isn't that always the way? You are faced with literally every possibility, and yet I was coming up blank.
That's until I saw the pineapple. They looked really delicious and I even found one that was really ripe. Now what to do with it?... stir fry!? Why not? I am a huge fan of stir fries but unfortunately my husband isn't. If it was just me I was cooking for I would eat one every other day, they are that good.
So my mind got to work on what I was going to mix this with... I had broccoli, cauliflower, celery and mushrooms at home so I didn't need any more veggies from the store but I wanted more flavor. What goes with sweet pineapple? Ginger?!... Perfect! So I picked up a piece the size of my thumb, grabbed the can of baby corn and I was done with supper ingredients!
This was really simple supper to throw together and it didn't take long to prepare or cook. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome of my latest creation. It was both sweet and savory and I know it's good when both Devon and I go back for seconds! I hope you enjoy it!
 
Ingredients
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 head of broccoli, chopped
1/4 head of cauliflower, chopped
5 stalks of celery, chopped
5-7 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 fresh pineapple, chopped
1 small can of baby corn (optional)
Ginger thumb sized, grated
1 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp Better Than Bouillon broth, vegetable flavor
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of cashews, soaked
Salt and pepper to taste

First get your rice (or whatever you choose) cooking, I use a rice cooker for my brown and wild rice and it takes an hour to cook. Then chop up all vegetables and fruit. Put aside a large handful of pineapple. Heat up a large frying pan on medium/high, add oil. Once melted add garlic and onions, sauté for 5 mins until browned. Add broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and sauté for 10 mins. Dissolve broth in water and add to pan with the soya sauce. Add mushrooms, pineapple, corn, and ginger. Continue cooking until vegetables are fork tender. Stir in cashews. With your hands squeeze the juice out of the pineapple and top your dish with it. Serve over rice, quinoa, or rice noodles! Enjoy!!

Thanks for reading!
Xoxo -N

Broccoli, Mushroom Coconut Soup

So I just had to share this right away because I love it so much, and it only took me 35 minutes from stove to bowl. Mmmmmmmm. I thought up this recipe last night when I noticed a head of broccoli in the fridge that was close to death and I didn't want to throw it out. Its super easy and few ingredients. Enjoy!

Broccoli, Mushroom Coconut Soup
2 heads of broccoli
3 stalks of celery
5 green onions
1 sm package of mushrooms
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp  of coconut oil
1 cup vegetable broth
2 cups of water
2 young coconuts, or 2.5 cups of canned coconut milk (clearly this is not a low fat soup)
Pepper to taste

Heat up a soup pot and oil on med/high. Chop up all of the veggies into bit sized pieces. I started with the onions and celery and threw those in to the pot to sweat while I chopped up the broccoli and mushrooms. When done chopping, add all of the veggies, the broth and the pepper into pot and cook for 10 minutes. If using young coconuts open them up and scoop out all of the meat and the water from one of the coconuts, drink the rest of the water from the second young coconut while you are cooking! Blend up the meat and water until smooth in a high speed blender. Add the coconut milk and water into the pot and set to simmer. Then your final step is to take half of the soup and puree it in a blender until smooth, add it back into the pot and Viola Done!  I am really impatient so I just let it simmer for 5 minutes, basically making sure all of the veggies are cooked and the coconut milk and broth have blended well. I can only imagine what this will taste like tomorrow, if there is any left. 

Devon suggested I use cooked and blended, cauliflower next time I make this to make the soup thicker. I totally agreed and was actually planning on it, but I guess I was wrong in thinking we had a head of it in our fridge. So next time that is the plan and when I do I will let you know how it goes! 

Hope you enjoy this as much as we did! 

Thanks for reading!
xoxo Nikki

Sweet Potato Curry Soup

Brr its cold in here!!

 As the temperatures lower, and the leaves get crunchy, there is one thing I come to realize.... its now soup season! And I like to believe that I make a pretty darn good soup, not a soup whisper per say but maybe a soup fanatic. Last fall and winter I am pretty sure I made soup every week, sometimes even twice. I have made everything from an Indian inspired sweet potato/cauliflower soup, traditional harvest vegetable soup, to my all time favourite Peanut Butter Soup (more on this later). The wonder of soup is that you can pretty much put any vegetable combination into a pot, add broth and your favourite spices and VIOLA! You got Soup! So as you can tell, Soup is one of my favourite meals to make. It’s easy to prepare, easy to freeze, and really easy to eat!

Usually my process starts with me being cold and thinking ‘Man I would do anything for a bowl of soup!” So I go home and search my fridge for ingredients that work well together, grab my largest pot and start chopping! Yesterday marked day one of my soup season and boy did it turn out fricken great. As I said before, I was cold at work and thought "Mmmm soup", so I mentally thought of what I had in my fridge and sweet potatoes popped in my head. PERFECT! They are hearty, sweet, colorful, nutritious, and not as starchy as the regular potato. Then I thought, crap I don’t have celery. For me, I can’t make soup without celery. So I raced into Safeway, grabbed a bunch of organic celery and went home to start this soup.

Ingredients

• 2 medium yellow onions
• 3 mediums carrots
• 5 stalks of celery
• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• ½ head of Broccoli
• 1 tbsp of coconut oil
• 1 cube of dry vegetable broth
• 3 cups of water
• ½ cup of uncooked, strained quinoa
• 1 tsp of curry
• 1 tsp of coriander
• 1 tsp of cumin
• Fresh cilantro

  

My soup starts off like any other vegetable soup... chopped veggies! So I take out onions, carrots, celery, broccoli and the main star – Sweet Potatoes! Chop up all the vegetables into bite size pieces, and place the broccoli aside. Heat up your pot on Medium/High heat, add your oil and sauté the onions, carrots, celery and sweet potatoes for about 10 minutes. Add 2 cups of the water, and continue cooking for another 5 minutes to blend the flavours of the veggies with the water. Reduce heat.

This next step is my secret weapon... my blender!! This is something that will change your soup making days FOREVER!!!! I know it did for me. You take half of the cooked vegetables and broth, throw it in your blender and puree.  While this is blending I add my dry broth and spices to the puree while it’s going.

Next pour the pureed vegetables back into the pot and stir in until well blended. This is when you add the last cup of water, broccoli and quinoa and stir. I like my soup on the chunky side (as you can see in the picture) so I don’t add that much water, but if you like more of a watery consistency, add more water until desired thickness or thinness.  Leave on low heat for another 20 minutes or until broccoli and quinoa are fully cooked. Wait for it to cool off a bit, top with fresh cilantro and ENJOY!!

To quote my wonderful husband tonight, “Wow this is really good” followed by “You could make this every week and I would eat this!” and my favourite “I love how this soup tastes like there is cream or milk in it, but it doesn’t!”

That is the beauty of blending the cooked vegetables to add to your base of your soup. It does make your soup creamy without adding any diary to the mixture. So fewer calories, vegan friendly and less ingredients you need to have on hand. Win-win for everyone! So let me know if you try my recipe, I would love to know how you like it and if you did any other variations to it! 

xoxo -N