Thai Boats - my favorite recipe right now

I wanted a Thai inspired meal that would be tasty, as easy as possible and encourage me to eat lots of veggies. I took original inspiration from The Cheesecake Factory Restaurant's "Lettuce Wraps" but simplified it with feedback from my family. I call this a "revolving meal" because I can have several components leftover from the first batch and easily get another meal prepped in a short amount of time. Make up extras of the two sauces and BAM! you'll have quick lunches or snacks available in short order!

It looks long, but it's actually easy and quick. Certainly not more difficult than making tacos.

If you try it, I'd love to hear about your experience. Did you add a veggie, ingredient, etc.?

Rachel's Thai Boats
This is a super flexible, recyclable meal. I call it a "revolving meal" because I will make a large batch but then also may need to refresh certain ingredients to serve again and again. Prepare for leftovers and you can eat well all week!

Thai Peanut Sauce--> see recipe
Curry Sauce--> see recipe
Mung Bean Sprouts and/or Maifun Noodles, optional. Annie Chun's Maifun brown rice noodles are perfect! They are super thin.
Romaine lettuce ribs (My favorite is the Artisan Romaine which gives the perfect size for eating with your hands. I get them at Costco)
Protein choice: ground chicken (thigh), shrimp ready to eat, or tofu chopped fine.
Cilantro, fresh, chopped
Variety of vegetables chopped small for toppings: carrots, cucumber

It's your choice on which ingredient to put the curry sauce: tofu, noodles or mung bean sprouts. Toss to coat.

Serve the components like you would a taco bar. Each person will have a plate with several lettuce leaves on it. They should be curved and hold the toppings a little bit like a taco shell. People can layer in all the ingredients of their choice: protein, veggies, sprouts, cilantro. And drizzle the peanut sauce over the boats with a fork.




Easy Thai Red Curry Sauce for Thai Boats

People love this on the Maifun noodles in Thai Boats. Toss the sauce with the cooked noodles. By coating the noodles with the sauce, they will keep in the refrigerator. Just re-heat a little bit to soften the coconut fat and they will serve up well for repeats of Thai Boats.

For a low carb option, sauté mung bean sprouts and toss them with this sauce, then serve them as a Thai Boat topper.

Or, if your protein choice for your Thai Boats is (sprouted) Tofu, then toss your chopped tofu with this sauce.

1 15 oz. can of full fat coconut milk (Natural Value, Thai Kitchen, or Native Forest Classic)
1 shallot, minced
1 Tbsp. Thai Kitchen brand Red Chili Paste
1 Tbsp. Fish Sauce
1 tsp. coconut sugar (or sub brown sugar)
1 Dorot Crushed Garlic frozen cubes (found at Trader Joe's and Costco), or 1 clove crushed & minced clove
1 Dorot Basil cube (found at Trader Joe's and Costco), or fresh minced basil

Open the can of coconut milk and take a scoop of the thickest part of the milk off the top. Put this into a small saucepan. Add the minced shallot. Heat it on medium heat. When the shallot begins to get soft, add the garlic cube and everything else except the basil.

Bring the mixture up to a simmer and turn off the heat. Toss in the basil.

Rachel's Thai Peanut Sauce
Recipe added to Myfitnesspal for recipe nutrition data: "RE's Thai Peanut Sauce"

I put this recipe together in March 2015 to create a simple, revolving meal with Thai flavors, low carbs, lots of veggies and protein. The Honeyville brand Organic Peanut Butter Powder which came to Costco this month is one of the lowest fat/calorie peanut butters and makes this sauce a dream. Easy to whip up a batch and eat to your heart's content!

Lest you miss the incredible value of the peanut flour, I'll reiterate: The fat has been removed from the peanut flour! Since peanut fat is not a valuable dietary fat (as would be coconut oil, or grass fed beef fat, or extra virgin olive oil, etc.), getting the fat out of the peanuts leaves us with the protein, fiber and FLAVOR of the peanuts, but lowers the total calories!

Makes 5 servings

3/4 cup Honeyville brand Organic Peanut Butter Powder (found at Costco)
1/4 cup water
100% Stevia extract powder, KAL brand, 5 tiny scoops (or the sweetener of your choice such as Truvia)
2 Tbsp. Tamari soy sauce, gluten free (it's a little stronger flavor than Shoyu/regular soy sauce) (you could use Bragg's Liquid Aminos or any soy sauce of your choice)
1 Tbsp Rice Vinegar
3 Tbsp fresh squeezed lime juice
1 tsp. Sriacha (1 Tbsp. will give just the right amount of heat for an adult who likes a little spice)

Put the water in a small mixing bowl. Put the peanut butter powder on top and begin stirring it in , pressing the lumps against the side of the bowl. Once this is very smooth, you can put in the rest of the ingredients. Since the ingredients are all quite low in calories, you can adjust everything to taste without much of a dietary impact.

Serve drizzled over Rachel's Thai Boats.

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I should say, you can use regular peanut butter as well as "PB2" powder from Target. The Honeyville Organic Peanut Butter Powder is not yet available on http://shop.honeyville.com/ but I would hope that after their market test at Costco they will up production and carry it on their website (You can get some pretty great sales via their e newsletters)