Last night's Dinner...Thai Almond Shrimp with Rice Noodles

 Okay...so I went to the store and bought a bunch of groceries...came home and googled: 'rice noodles and shrimp' and up popped a Clean Recipe!! Was pretty surprised as sometimes I have to dig deep or really modify what I find in order to make it clean and healthy!!!

Have you checked out www.cleaneatingmag.com? That's where I found the recipe: Thai Coconut Shrimp with Brown Rice Pasta.

Okay...this looks good...no dairy...but I don't have the following ingredients: 

• Coconut milk (have coconut water...but figured that was too thin to use)...Substituted with WholeFoods brand Unsweetened Almond Milk - worked amazingly well!! Their almond milk is thicker and creamier than others! LOVE IT!
• Natural Peanut Butter w/ sea salt (unless I wanted flavored Peanut Butter & Co. in my dinner?! hmm, not so much!)...used natural almond butter and threw in a little sea salt
• Bean Sprouts - oh well...figured that wasn't THAT Important of an ingredient ;)

So here is the recipe I used:

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 oz dry brown rice noodles or pasta of your choice
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 2/3 cup unsweetened almond milk (wholefoods brand)
• 1 tbsp tomato paste (wholefoods brand)
• 3 tbsp natural almond butter with a pinch of sea salt added by yours truly
• 1 tsp ginger, ground
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (used my garlic liquid...great stuff!)
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• Juice of 1/2 lime (I always use fresh...can't stomach the sulfites in the bottled version)
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
• 24 medium raw shrimp, peeled, deveined and rinsed under cold running water (ok, I bought them already cooked - GUILTY!!! but I got them from the fish counter and they said there no sulfites to maintain freshness...my stomach is fine today so I believe them!)

INSTRUCTIONS from site:

1. Bring 2 medium pots of water to a boil over high heat. In 1 pot, cook pasta according to package directions, then rinse with hot water to ensure pasta doesn’t get sticky when left to stand. (NOTE: Hot water washes away the starch better than cold water.) Fluff pasta with your fingers or a fork to further de-clump noodles, then set aside. In the second pot of boiling water, add broccoli, cover, turn heat down to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, in a bowl, add almond milk, tomato paste, almond butter, ginger, garlic, pepper flakes and lime juice. Use a fork or whisk to thoroughly combine.
3. Simmer coconut mixture and bell pepper  in a nonstick pan over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, stirring often to prevent clumping. Add shrimp and cook for another 2 minutes, then flip shrimp over and continue to cook for a final minute.
4. Toss noodles and broccoli with coconut-shrimp mixture and serve piping hot.

NOTE:

• I boiled water but didn't cook the rice pasta until the last 5 minutes possible. WHY? It gets cold FAST and sticks together like crazy!!! I wanted it HOT and not sticky :) This worked well!! Cooked it, drained it and threw the rest of the dish on top for a hot yummy dinner!!
• You can also cook broccoli during last 5 minutes of making the dinner as it got cold while everything else was cooking...just my opinion!

This was delicious!!!! Try it out and let me know what you think :) Wanna see a pic? Until I figure out how to do this correctly with pics from my phone, go here!