Primal Peanut Sauce and Coco Rice

Not wanting to lose momentum before we've even really begun, I decided to cook something from Vegan Infusion last night. However, I hadn't been to the store in over a week and things were getting a bit sparse in the pantry...so I leafed through the book to see what might work with the two main ingredients I did have on hand: spinach, and tofu (which I had already started marinating before this brainstorm to use the cookbook, because that's just how organized I am). I settled on the Coco Rice from Samadhi Lotus Coco Rice, and Primal Peanut Sauce for a take on the classic Rama Thai (or sometimes "Swimming Angels").

And I will say, the Primal Peanut Sauce is pretty damn amazing! (And yes, there will be other peanut sauces reviewed here in the very near future for comaparison, as you may have guessed if you read the previous entry. We're a wee bit opinionated about food around here, as you probably noticed already. But I digress.) I liked this sauce for several reasons. First and foremost, it's got a lot of coconut milk in it, and I am absolutely crazy about the stuff! I somehow managed not to cut my tongue licking the thick, creamy build-up from the inside of the lid, and refrained from drinking it straight, and put it in the blender with everything else...that's the second reason I loved this recipe--no simmering. Just whiz it up in the blender, and you're done. And thirdly: yum. It's thinner than most peanut sauces I've made, which leads my mind to other uses, such as salad dressings.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will now tell you that I didn't follow the recipe exactly. In fact, I should warn you that it is a rare day indeed when I do adhere to every word of a recipe. I'm rebellious like that. ANYWAY, I didn't have maple syrup, so I used agave nectar instead. And I was out of Shoyu, so in went the Bragg's Liquid Aminos. I haven't whipped up a batch of the Curry Paste from Vegan Fusion yet, but I did have Thai Red Curry paste open in the fridge, so that went in, too. And finally, with the faint hope that my kids might have some, I omitted the red pepper flakes. So perhaps I'm not actually reviewing Primal Peanut Sauce here at all? I seem to have altered at least half of the ingredients! There you have a glimpse into the workings of me as a cook.

The Coco Rice, which I did manage to make entirely as directed, was very good as well, and very easy. Both kids ate a lot of it. Neither kid was very excited about the peanut sauce, but that isn't much of a surprise. Apparently peanut butter outside of a sandwich is highly suspect. My husband, on the other hand, who does love a good peanut sauce, thought it was very good, especially with the rice. (He was less complimentary about the tofu, but that's neither here nor there....) But the thing about the rice is that I already LOVE LOVE LOVE brown basmati rice, and don't really feel that the coconut milk kicked it up enough to justify its use; did I mention how much I love coconut milk? I hate to use it without full justification! It does indeed make the rice extra-good, but I probably won't fix it on a "normal" night (whatever that is!), maybe saving it for special, damn-the-calories occasions.

So there you have it. We're still working the kinks out of this blog, and trying to figure out the rules about posting recipes and so on. Hopefully those will be forthcoming very soon!

~Sophie