Great Success/Epic Fail

It's all about balance, right?  Good and Bad/Light and Dark/Yin and Yang....Well this weekend of recipes was definitely balanced with successes and failures.

First up, the success!! My friend Kathleen lent me her beloved spiralizer and I was so excited to spiralize everything.  I am not new to Zoodles. I have been making them the old fashioned way with a good ol' veggie peeler, but the spiralizer has changed my world!  Potatoes and Beets all twirling into ribbons of nourishing goodness...sigh*

The Glorious Veg-oodles

The Veg-oodle dish(I'm going with this term...its quirky and descriptive.  I like it)  I created this weekend was inspired by one of my favorite blogs, Half Baked Harvest and the recipe for Rainbow Veggie Pad Thai Noodles!!  I love the challenge of making take-out food at home and so does the spouse.  He loves a good Pad Thai so this was a good place to start.

Veg-oodle Pad Thai
Generously serves 2 or perfect for leftovers!

Ingredients

1 Beet, peeled and noodled
1 Sweet Potato, peeled and noodled
**Or your husband doesn't believe in Veg-oodles and insists on Rice Noodles...I gave in and made him his own traditional pad thai style rice noodles.  What I do for love.

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar, unseasoned
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sambal oelek
2 tablespoons tamari
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 lime, juice and zest
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped

Garnish

1/2 cucumber cut into matchsticks and 1/4 red onion diced, mix with tablespoon of rice vinegar and a teaspoon of honey
Fresh Basil
Fresh Cilantro
Red Bell Pepper, cut into thin matchsticks
Avocado
Roasted unsalted Cashews, chopped (You could use peanuts here. Thats traditional but I love cashews)
Limes
Sambal oelek or Sriracha

Instructions

Mix all the dressing ingredients together in a large bowl.  In a large pot of boiling water, cook your Veg-oodles for one or two minutes.  I did this in two batches because I wanted to try to keep the beets from coloring this sweet potatoes.  Place the potatoes and beets into the bowl with the dressing and toss to coat.  Place in serving bowls and garnish to your hearts desire!

*Note* Like I mentioned above, my hubs despises anything that is pretending to be something that it is not.  For example, Cauliflower cous cous...not cous cous.  Veg-oodles...not noodles.  So I made him the traditional rice noodles and added chicken to his dish.  For the chicken, I made a sauce of 1 tablespoon of peanut butter and 2 tablespoons of tamari.  When the chicken was fully cooked, I tossed it with the sauce and then with his noodles in a seperate dish (Oh the adventures of Vegetarians married to Carnivores...a lot of dishes :) )

Veg-oodle Pad Thai

This was a great success and I was so happy! I am now on the hunt for a spiralizer!  Please let me know which brands are your favorite!

Now on to the failure. 

I was in the mood to bake but not in the mood to venture to the store during the thunder-snow/windstorm chaos that was happening on Nantucket yesterday.  So I went my pantry and uncovered a few inspirational items.

Pantry Inspiration

I vowed to try to make magic...and I tried.  I really did.  But after mixing and matching and adding and tasting...I came up with this weird soft pudding cake thing...

I shall call you...a mess!

It tastes ok...it has some really healthy ingredients...but I have to be honest with myself and the world...it is a mess.  It is currently living in my freezer where I am hoping it will set up, then maybe I can work some voodoo magic. It will not go to waste.  This girl hates food waste, so it may come out one night in a fit of chocolate desire.

Oh well, better luck next time!  I have to keep playing or else no magic will ever happen.  

Have a splendid week and celebrate your SUCCESSES AND FAILURES!!!