Cool Kelp Noodle Salad

I have had these kelp noodles sitting in my refrigerator, waiting and waiting to be eaten. They were just so mysterious. What will they taste like? What should I make with them? How should I prepare them? Finally, I just had to go for it! After opening the package and tasting a noodle, my first thought was "Mmm, crunchy!" They are a raw food and all you do is rinse them and they're ready to eat.

So I decided to make a cold salad with the kelp noodles and a bunch of veggies. First, I tossed the noodles in a simple garlic-tamari sauce. This kind of noodles doesn't really have much flavor on their own. Along with the veggies, the result was kind of like an Asian-inspired coleslaw and I thought it was delicious.


Ingredients:
Kelp noodles
Shredded savoy cabbage
Roasted beets (see below)
1/2 Diced shallot

Diced carrots

Sauce:
Tamari (soy sauce)
Fresh minced garlic (2 cloves)
Sriracha hot sauce
Red pepper flakes
1 tsp oil

About the beets: Beets might be my new favorite veggie. First of all, you get 2 veggies in one (the greens and the roots) and I love me some braised beet greens! In this recipe, I could have used raw beets, then it would have been a completely raw dish. But, I had already roasted the beets yesterday so I used those. Fresh roasted beets are awesome. Just wrap the whole thing in tin foil and bake on 400 degrees for about an hour. You can just put them directly in the fridge and they will store for a couple days if you don't want to use them right away. You will need to peel the outside skin before eating.

Vegan Shrimp? Interesting...

I must admit that I have mixed feelings about Vegetarian Plus brand Vegan Shrimp. On one hand, its appearance and texture really do bring back fond memories of delicious shrimp that I once enjoyed. On the other, it's lacking in taste and isn't quite as tender as I'd like. My conclusion is that vegan shrimp is more of a fun novelty vegan food, but worth a try if you used to like shrimp like me. (I would like to try mixing it in a food processor to see if i can make something like a krab cake or krab rangoons. We'll see how that goes later.)

For this pasta, we used whole wheat angel hair noodles, diced red pepper, sliced crimini mushrooms, diced onion, fresh garlic, olive oil, and crushed red pepper. I let the shrimp thaw before tossing it in with the other ingredients, then at the end mixed in the noodles and let it all cook together for a minute at the end.

(There is Daiya vegan cheese garlic bread in the background... so good.)