A Recipe & an IOU

We had a nice Mother's Day dinner last night. Here's a cute picture of Carlos eyeing my gift from my mom (which turned out to be a gorgeous lightweight sweater with beautiful sparkly buttons that I've had my eye on for quite some time). Matt got me a pink rhododendron to replace one that has mysteriously died in our yard... hopefully this one will do better.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I have a Pad Thai recipe for you today that is easy and vegan - hooray! It's not super-authentic (no tamarind), but it is tasty and quick, and uses readily available ingredients. I had also hoped to share the strawberry pie recipe that I made for Mother's Day yesterday; however, our taste test revealed that it is not quite ready for prime time yet. I got the recipe from another vegan blog and it was good, just not great. But I have some ideas of how I plan to improve it and I'm on a mission. Soon I will (hopefully) have a truly outstanding vegan strawberry pie recipe to share with you all.

Pad Thai

14 ounces firm or extra-firm tofu
1 pound thai-style rice noodles
6 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
6 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
bean sprouts
cilantro, chopped
peanuts, chopped
1-2 limes, quartered

Prepare the tofu to your taste - you can either start with plain tofu and fry it with a little soy sauce (that's what I do), or marinade it first, then fry it, or even buy thai-flavored prepared tofu, whichever you prefer. Prepare noodles according to package instructions. While tofu and noodles are cooking, whisk together lemon/lime juice, ketchup, brown sugar, and soy sauce. When noodles and tofu are ready, pour sauce over noodles and toss to coat. Serve noodles in individual bowls topped with tofu, bean sprouts, cilantro, and peanuts. Garnish with lime wedges.