Archives for vegetarian

Pad Thai with Peanut Sauce

Hi Zucchini Runner faithful! It’s me, Mr. Zucchini Runner. I’ve been asked to do a guest post on this dish to help out Mrs. Zucchini Runner. She has close to 1.4 million other things she’s working on right now but she always wants to make sure she feeds your appetites for new recipes so here I am!IMG_6061

We were at the store awhile back and Mrs. Zucchini Runner saw a box of Pad Thai noodles on the shelf and decided to throw them in the cart. We didn’t have a specific recipe in mind, she just wanted to have them just in case.

Well just in case happened a few weeks later. We put this dish together on a whim, I can’t remember exactly how we decided we needed to have Pad Thai but once the decision was made we had to figure out what we wanted to put on the noodles. After a quick discussion we decided to go with a peanut sauce and made ours by combining recipes from 3 different books and using what we had in our kitchen. It turned out incredible and didn’t take that long to prepare!

We always try and have lots of colors on our plate. Even though we added carrots and mushrooms to the Pad Thai we decided to add a nutritional power house side dish of Swiss chard and onions. Always remember people, the more colorful your food is the better it is for you. And that’s natural color, not red dye #40!!

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Sauce
  • 1/4 c. coconut milk
  • 2 tbsp. creamy peanut butter (make sure it doesn’t have added sugars)
  • 2 dates
  • 2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp. tamari or soy sauce
  • 1/2 c. water
  • 1 tsp. olive oil
  • 1 very small jalapeno pepper diced (more or less depending on how spicy you like your sauce)

 

Topping
  • 1/8 c. chopped toasted peanuts
  • 1 bunch of fresh green onions sliced lengthwise
  • 1/2 fresh lime

 

Sautéed
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 3 large carrots, sliced
  • 6 baby portobella mushrooms, diced

Noodles

  • 1 pkg stir fry brown rice noodles, prepared according to package instructions (we used Thai Kitchen’s)

 

A few tips on the order to makes things easier; start sautéing the carrots, mushrooms etc. first since this step takes the longest. Once that is going do the sauce, and cook the noodles last since they only take a few minutes and are best served right out of the water.

Sauté olive oil, garlic, carrots and mushrooms in a large skillet until the carrots are cooked to your desired tenderness.

For the sauce, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. (This is to soften the peanut butter.) Then using an immersion blender, blend everything until no solids are left. Set aside.

While the carrots and mushrooms are sautéing and the sauce is set aside you can start the brown rice noodles, which cook quickly.

While the noodles are cooking combine the peanut sauce with the sautéed vegetables in the pan you cooked them in. The peanut sauce should still be warm so all you need to do is heat it up and let the flavors mesh.

When the noodles are done add them to the pan with the peanut sauce and vegetables give it a nice mix around and slap it on your plates. Make it pretty by adding the crushed peanuts and green onions on top (don’t tell Mrs. Zucchini Runner but I pulled the onions off of mine after she took the picture, they look pretty but I’m not a fan of raw onions), put whatever super healthy colorful side dish you decided to whip up on the side, wipe off any salivation coming out of your mouth and enjoy!

 

Plant-Based Eating :: Volume II Day 10

Day 10 Volume II

The time has come… today is the last day of my food journaling. I figured 10 days was a good round number and besides, we need to start getting ready for our cross country trip in our RV! Lots and lots of food prep and planning for the week ahead! I hope you have enjoyed the journey as much as I have. Knowing people were “watching” what I was eating forced me to be more creative with my food and I really enjoyed that! Hopefully I will still carry that with me tomorrow, when I’m not going to be blogging it. 😉 As promised in yesterday’s post, I did get 9.5 hours of sleep, and then an hour long nap on the couch. I LOVE Sundays! No workouts. No work. Just some relaxation, reading and watching the History Channel.

I had a Shakeology smoothie for breakfast this morning, cause I had lots of fun stuff to get done! It was water, 1/2 a banana, 1/4 cup of frozen cherries, 10 raw almonds, 1/4 cup fresh blueberries, ice and of course a packet of vanilla Shakeology! Tasted great and lasted me about 3 hours! (264 calories, 36 carbs, 7 g fat, 18 g protein)
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For lunch I simply cooked carrots, onions, kale, celery, squash and some egg whites. Mr. Zucchini Runner made some amazing breakfast-style potatoes as well. So good!! (336 calories, 60 carbs, 0 fat, 25 g protein)IMG_3153Not pictured, are 8 dark chocolate covered almonds I ate when I woke up from a nap! (153 calories, 15 carbs, 10 g fat, 3 g protein) I had a healthier snack when I was more awake… apple with cinnamon, chia seeds, lemon juice and some pecans. (158 calories, 19 carbs, 10 g fat, 2 g protein)

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Shockingly, I had an Envirokids bar. 😉 (120 calories, 18 carbs, 5 g fat, 2 g protein)

IMG_3158For dinner I wanted to do something a little more “fancy” and opted to attempt a veggie Mexican lasagna. After all, we did still have 2 more giant zucchini’s to use up… they have just been sitting around, waiting to be productive. IMG_2843

These were locally grown by our friends Melissa and Adam and generously given to us (3 of them, to be exact) while we were at their daughter’s birthday party! SCORE!! I can’t think of anything better for Zucchini Runner to have and enjoy… and have a little fun with… !IMG_3114

I’m sensing my new profile pic for social media… 😉zucchini_runnerZucchini, cashew cream, salsa, mashed kidney beans mixed with some cumin and tomatillo salsa, topped off with corn all layered in a baking dish. (284 calories, 46 carbs, 8 g fat, 12 g protein)

IMG_3164And for my “free” treat of the week? Mr. Zucchini Runner just created one of these for each of us! He is GREAT at throwing things together and making them delicious! It is dark chocolate, Annie’s Cinnamon Bunnies (ground up) and homemade peanut butter – sounds like good run fuel for tomorrow morning!IMG_3170

Thanks for following along on this journey! Now I can add two new recipes I’ve been wanting to add. 🙂

Grand totals for the 10th and final day (not including my free dessert!):

Calories: 1,315

Carbs: 194

Fat: 40 g

Protein: 62 g

Sugars: 72 g