Behold, the ugliest picture of the tastiest food ever:
We should perhaps establish now that there is an inverse relationship between the quality of the food photograph and the quality of the actual food. For example, my cinnamon rolls are practically famous, but they are also impossible to photograph. Could it be the prison-like windows in our apartment? The fluorescent lighting? The camera phone? Who can say... But it's true. Ugly picture = yummy food.
Maybe I could have stepped back... But that would have exposed that I had already tossed it into the Pyrex. Whoops. Not planning ahead.
But I'm all about spontaneity over here!
That said, I have made the recipe quite a few times since then and this time I grabbed my bowl and carried it around the house, looking for perfect light while Emilie screamed for me from the kitchen (look for me before you scream for me! you know i'm in the house! i was with you two seconds ago!) until I captured this:
A better, but still completely out of focus shot of my food. I'm just not cut out for iphone food styling. Also, the inverse relationships still stands. This did not taste nearly as good as the chow mein in the ugly shot! I'm pretty sure I completely left out the rice vinegar... Oh well. Follow the actual recipe and you shall have ugly and delicious food in no time!
So back to the original post...
The other night we were on a walk when the craving for chow mein struck. Being a moron, I thought CHOW mein and LO mein were the same thing, so I quickly googled a recipe for the LO variety, headed to Sprouts and stocked up on literally every ingredient in the recipe because I had nothing but Indian spices in my cabinet and 10 pounds of carrots in my fridge. Made the recipe, took a huge bite and yummmm.... not chow mein.
So the next night I made this. And the next day I ate it reheated. And then today I made a double batch and ate half of it straight out of the pot. I have no shame.
The first time I made this I used the leftover veggies from my lo mein shopping trip, which were not really right for this recipe, but worked, so that should be reassuring if you're already overwhelmed by the prospect of buying stuff like sesame oil that you might not ever use again. But, if you're like me, you'll eat this for every meal every day for a week until your pores start leaking sriracha. Because guys. I'm 10 years behind and just discovered sriracha and yeah. It's that good.
Veggie Chow Mein (adapted from The Wanderlust Kitchen)
- 8 oz Spaghetti
- ¼ Cup low sodium Tamari or soy sauce (I like tamari because it's actually made from soy beans, whereas soy sauce is made from wheat and other random stuff to make it taste like authentic SOY sauce)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 teaspoons coconut or brown sugar
- ½ cup water, reserved from pasta water
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil (or vegetable/coconut/olive oil)
- 4 ounces brown mushrooms, sliced
- 1 cup snow peas, cut into large pieces (or whole, but that's annoying to eat)
- 2 large carrots, cut into matchsticks
- 1 cup shredded cabbage
- 2 green onions, chopped thinly
- Sesame seeds
- Cook pasta according to package directions. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water and then drain, toss with a bit of oil and set aside.
- Blend together garlic, sugar, vinegar and tamari or soy sauce and set aside.
- Heat the sesame oil in a dutch oven or skillet over medium-high heat. Add vegetables and cook until tender.
- Add noodles, sauce and reserved water and toss regularly until liquid has nearly all reduced. Add sesame seeds and eat straight from pot. Or a bowl. Your choice.
I hope that you all try this and love it as much as I do. Like I said, it's easy to mix up with whatever vegetables you have in your fridge. This will definitely be a clean-out-the-fridge staple around here!
