Mostly Raw Pad Thai

I love the blog Oh She Glows!  I visit it several times a week and love looking at all of the gorgeous photos of tasty vegan food.  Everything Angela makes always looks so beautiful and healthy.  It makes vegan food really approachable and showcases how delicious it is, which I absolutely love.  I have made many of the savory recipes and a couple baked goods from her blog -they've turned out well.  I periodically go on the website and browse through the pictures, saving the ones that look especially delicious, telling myself that of course I'm going to make all the recipes.  When I saw the Rad Rainbow Pad Thai recipe, it was just so beautiful and I knew I had to make it.  Super healthy, light and gorgeous - I just made it.  And it was great.  I made a tasty peanut sauce to go with it and ate it for a couple days - giant bowls of it!  It really did make quite a lot.  So, after a couple days, there was still quite a bit of it and I was a little tired of eating it raw, so I decided to simply saute it in a little bit of olive oil, add a splash of tamari - and it turned out so delicious!  Yum! 

 

 



A tasty plate of the Pad Thai.  Before topping with the peanut sauce.

I made my mostly raw Pad Thai a little different than Angela, just based on the fresh veggies I had in my refrigerator.  I'm not huge on raw zucchini, so I only used a super small one and added more cabbage.  I felt in the mood to use my knife skills so I chopped and julienned everything by hand.  It took a while, but was very rewarding and very tasty! 





It really made a lot!



Mostly Raw Pad Thai:

Serves: 4-6

1/2  head green cabbage, julienned
1 carrot, julienned
1 small zucchini, julienned
1 red bell pepper, julienned
4 scallions, sliced on the diagonal
3/4 cup shelled edamame, steamed
2 tablespoons raw sesame seeds

Spicy Peanut Sauce:
2/3 c. smooth organic peanut butter
1/4 - 1/3 cup filtered water to thin out, or as needed
3 tablespoons maple syrup or agave
2 tablespoons tamari
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2" piece ginger, peeled and minced
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sriracha

1.  Prepare the Pad Thai: place all of the prepped veggies in a large bowl, along with the edamame and sesame seeds.  Toss well to mix.  Set aside.
2.  Prepare the peanut sauce: place all of the ingredients for the sauce in a medium sized mixing bowl and whisk like crazy until everything is well combined.  Season to taste, adding more sweetener or tamari as desired.
3.  To serve, place a giant portion of the Pad Thai on a plate and drizzle with desired amount of spicy peanut sauce. 

So good! Hubbs loves anything with peanut sauce on it.  He was doubtful about eating this because he didn't think it would be substantial enough to keep him full.  He ended up really liking it - and used about half of the sauce on his portion!


Enjoy!

Koko

Gluten Free Coconut Cashew Truffles

We have been talking at work about truffles lately.  We already have a chocolate truffle.  But admittedly,  it is one of the previous baker's recipes and is really not good or tasty.  (It is also not allergy friendly because it contains soy, chocolate, gluten and nuts.)  But, if there is one thing I have learned since being in this position,  it is that our customers do not like current items changed.  We tried to change the tiramisu (the old baker used stale muffins as the base, lemon tofu creme, then drizzled the entire thing with chocolate - does this sound like tiramisu?  God no!),  and all the customers rebelled and freaked out.  So we are back to the lemon creme tiramisu, although not with the stale muffins because we have more class than that! 

Anyway, we've decided not to change the truffle recipe, but I definitely want to do a white truffle.  White chocolate would obviously be the best thing ever, but it is extremely difficult to find a vegan white chocolate and very very expensive.  So, beautiful idea, but not realistic.  Moving on.  Then I came up with the idea of using cashew and coconut.  A cashew coconut truffle?  Interesting sounding, but would it be tasty?  Hmm - onto the testing.  It took me a good 3 tries to get the consistency right, but in the end it worked out and is so delicious!  One batch made 70 and I brought out as I was walking out the door.  When I came in the next morning, I couldn't find them anywhere and was convinced that someone had dropped the tray on the floor and thrown them away.  After asking around, I discovered they all sold within 3 hours - 70 truffles in 3 hours!  Yes, they're that damn good!

Coconut Cashew Truffles:



Melt on Your Tongue Delicious!

Yields 30 mini truffles

1 1/2 cups cashews, soaked
3/4 cup young coconut flesh, chopped
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons agave
1 1/2 cups coconut oil, melted (refined is best)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 vanilla bean, deseeded

1.  Drain the water from the cashews and discard.  Make sure all the ingredients are room temperature or warmer.  If anything is cold, it will cause the coconut oil to solidify and this mixture will not blend at all. 
2.  Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and blend until completely smooth and silky.  It will be very glossy looking and a little stretchy from the coconut. 
3.  Place in a rectangular container, cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to refrigerate 4 hours to overnight. 
4.  The following day when you want to portion these out, allow the mixture to sit out for about 5-10 minutes to soften slightly - it will be impossible to start scooping them out right away.  Use a mini ice cream scoop/portion scoop and scoop them onto a plate lined with shredded coconut.  Once you have scooped a good amount, use your hands to roll them into uniform shaped balls and roll in the coconut right away. 
5.  Once you have finished portioning and rolling all the truffle balls, place them in the refrigerator and store them there. But, first you have to pop a whole one in your mouth and sigh in bliss!  So amazing!

Enjoy!

-Koko