Hi.  I just improvised myself the best meal I’ve had in a while, so I thought I’d pause between bites and write down the recipe for all the world to enjoy.  Ha ha.  But at least I will know where the recipe is.

So I was making some lomein noodles, which I have never made before.  I followed the directions for one serving – easy enough, boil for about 8 minutes then rinse in cold water.  I did that, put it in a bowl, splashed on some liquid aminos, (healthy soy sauce) and started to eat.  Let’s say it wasn’t exactly tasty.  Good enough if I was really in a rush or really lazy, but that wasn’t the case today, thankfully. 

I had just been looking through a vegan cookbook earlier and saw notes I had taken on how to make pad thai or pad see yew a few years ago. 

My notes are really poor – in pencil, jottings, really… somewhat suspect.  When I saw that I had written down ‘4 cups of soy sauce’ i realized I’d better not follow along word for word.  But my notes did point me in the right direction.

I put some, maybe 2 tbsp, grapeseed oil in my frying pan, sliced 2 cloves of garlic – I like nice thick slices, like 1/8 inch or a little more, just so I can see the garlic in my food.  I think it looks nice.  So I sauteed the garlic, threw in a rock solid hunk of brown sugar, probably 1 or maybe 2 tbsp., then I did something fairly dumb, *don’t do this – it’s an example of being dumb* I poured vinegar right into the very hot oil – it splattered all over and I almost started a fire.  I pulled the pan off the stove and watched to make sure that I didn’t need my fire extinguisher, wiped off the bottom of the pan, and threw in the cold lomein noodles.  When I replaced the pan, it was fine.

Then I put in some more vinegar, probably 2 tbsp. and some ketchup, another 2 tbsp.  It sounds gross, but it worked.  Then I put in some liquid ginger from the ginger people, probably 1 tbsp., 2 more tbsp of liquid aminos, and stirred.  At this point, it smelled wonderful. 

I’m sure I could have stopped there and been fine, but being a vegan I’m always being told to make sure I get my protein.  So I opened a package of firm tofu, drained off the liquid, and chopped it up a bit and threw it in.  There wasn’t much liquid left, so I added more vinegar, Braggs aminos, and a splash more ketsup.  Stirred it around for a bit, but I wanted something green in there.  All I had was broccoli, which I’m tired of, a green pepper, which I’m saving for roasted vegetables later, and some mescaline mix.  I didn’t know how it would taste, but I thought what the hell, I’m experimenting.  I threw in about 5 handsful of the mescaline mix.  Waited until it was shrively and all the liquid was cooked off, and put it in a bowl.  I wished I had peanuts, but we don’t buy them that often.  There were about 1/4 c of walnuts left in the cupboard, though, so I crushed them a little bit and threw them in.  Viola.  Yum.

In the end, there was too much tofu, about 1/2 a package would have sufficed.  Live and learn.  Luckily we have cold storage.  Good luck if you decide to make this – remember, don’t throw the vinegar into the hot oil.  Sheila