Rebecca's Remedy

I absolutely love Thai food and used to eat it all the time. It tastes so good but it is loaded with so much grease and fat that you feel horrible after eating it.  I have seen so many recipes on raw foodies site that use kelp noodles as an alternative to rice noodles.  I haven’t been able to find kelp noodles in any local market or even Whole Foods, so I ended up buying a case of them online from Sea Tangle Noodle Company. It is so great to have so many packages of these in my cupboards for a quick, easy meal.

You may be wondering, what the heck are kelp  noodles? Sea Tangle describes them as a sea vegetable in the form of an easy to eat raw noodle. Made of only kelp (a sea vegetable), sodium alginate (sodium salt extracted from a brown seaweed), and water, Kelp Noodles are fat-free, gluten-free, and very low in carbohydrates and calories. Their noodle form and neutral taste allow for a variety of uses including salads, stir-fries, hot broths, and casseroles, while their healthful content provides a rich source of trace minerals including iodine, which kelp is well known for. Their unique texture completes the package, making Kelp Noodles a one-of-a-kind healthful and tasty alternative to pasta and rice noodles. Best of all, no cooking is required. Just rinse and add the noodles to any dish and they are ready to eat!

This recipe, which Dee Charboneau calls Kelp Noodle Heaven, was from the Road to Raw recipe book. The Road to Raw is a great site and totally worth looking into if you have been thinking about trying to move towards a plant based diet or do a raw food cleanse. They provide you with so much information, a day-to-day meal guide with tons of recipes and a website which acts as an open forum where you can learn LOTS of very useful information. They make the transition easy it you have fears.

Here is my first attempt at raw pad thai. Not too bad if I say myself.

KELP NOODLE HEAVEN

serves 2-3 people, depending on how hungry you are

For the noodle heaven:

• 1 package sea tangle kelp noodles
• Purple cabbage (optional)

Rinse the kelp noodles well and drain in a colander.

Transfer to a bowl. Thinly chop about ¾ cup worth of purple cabbage and put in the bowl with the noodles. Mix and set aside.

For the sauce:

• 4-5 tbsp almond butter
• ¼ cup filtered water
• 3 tbsp extra virgin coconut oil
• 1-2 jalapeno peppers, with seeds removed (depending on how much spice you like, start with one and add another if you want to make it very SPICY)
• 1 tbsp agave OR different sweetener like coconut nectar
• 1 tbsp Nama Shoyu or tamari or Braggs
• ½ – 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp hot pepper sesame oil (or regular sesame oil)
• 1 tsp raw apple cider vinegar

Put all sauce ingredients in your blender and blend until smooth and creamy. After blending, pour over the noodle and cabbage mixture and let sit for about 5-10 minutes so that the noodles can soften. Garnish with dice tomatoes and/or fresh herbs.

I added julienned carrots, arugula micro-greens, nutritional yeast & sesame seeds. YUM YUM YUM. No more thai take out for me, its kelp noodles from now on.