Pad Thai Wannabe

I can never get enough of Thai food; and my absolute favorite dish is Pad Thai. Now some places do it cheaply and instead of using authentic ingredients, will toss in (YUCK!) ketchup. Now I'm not claiming this is an EXACT replica, but it comes pretty close.
Making this as a split dishes requires 3 pots and pans (which is as low as I could make it)

Tangy Thai Peanut Sauce
In a magic bullet (yipee) or a food processor, combine the following and blend well.

• 1 garlic clove roughly chopped
• 1 Tbsp of roughly chopped ginger
• 1/3 cup of Cashew butter or Peanut butter
• 2 Tbsp of Soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp of Rice Vinegar
• 1 Tbsp of lime juice
• 1 Tbsp of sambal (or chili sauce)
• 1 tsp of honey
• zest of one orange
• 1/4 cup of chopped coriander
  

Next, chop up all your veggies. I used whatever I could find in the fridge: Broccoli, Napa cabbage, snow peas, Chinese greens, celery and carrots. For the last two, I chopped them into matchsticks so they would mimic the noodle shape.

With the vegetables, I chopped up 1 Tbsp of ginger and garlic.

Pad Thai Wannabe

• 6-8 cups of chopped vegetables
• 1 Tbsp of ginger and garlic
• 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil
• a couple of handfuls of linguine, or fettucini noodles (or if you want, egg noodles or rice noodles)
• 1 chicken breast (seasoned with salt, pepper and bit of olive oil)
• 1 meatless chicken breast (President's Choice)

1. Bring water to boil in a large pot. Season with salt and add noodles. Cook for 10 minute
2. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan, skillet or grill pan, cook meatless chicken (from frozen) for 5 minutes per side. Set aside on plate when done and slice into strips
3. In the same pan, cook Chicken on both sides until done (6-8 minutes per side). Set aside on another plate when done and slice into strips
4. In a wok or large skillet, heat up 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Add ginger/garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add vegetables and cook until just tender (around 4 minutes). Remove veggies to a bowl.
5. If pasta is done, drain and reserve about 4 cups of pasta water
6. At this point, you have a large pot, a wok and a skillet. Use the skillet you cooked the chicken in for the "meat" dish and the wok for the vegetarian version (yeah, no cleanup!)
7. To pot/skillet, bring back chicken and add half of the Tangy Thai Peanut Sauce. It will be quite thick, so add 1 1/2 cups of pasta water. Add in half of pasta and veggies.
8. Blend until coated, added more pasta water if necessary.
9. Garnish with freshly chopped coriander and some crushed peanuts

ETA: This was soooooo good. I'm patting myself on the back. I'm glad I made extra mmmm leftovers.