pad thai-ish

It was one of those nights where I needed to make dinner, did not want to run to the store (it's 30 minutes, just to drive there and back!), but had no dishes left on my weekly menu. What to do? Go to the pantry and stare. It's worked before.

I noticed some onions and some rice noodles. It's a stretch, but...pad thai? Pulling open lil' Miss Vegan With a Vengeance (I knew she had a recipe for it) and checked ingredients. Well, no bean sprouts, and no green onions, but I have a red onion. No seitan, but I do have chicken. (Shhh, don't tell the vegan lady that I used her recipe with such apparent sacrilege.) Dang! I'm out of rice vinegar...um...apple cider? Sure, why not? And yes, I do have limes!

It wasn't the best pad thai ever, granted. But it was food and it wasn't gross and it was good enough to have seconds. (But to be honest, it had got to be pretty yucky for me to not eat seconds, and that just doesn't happen too often.)

My husband, who has the most sensitive-to-spicy mouths in existence, always orders pad thai at thai establishments. It's tried, it's true and not spicy. (If it wasn't for his ruts, he'd fall over, but I love him that way.) He asked that I not make this recipe again. "It wasn't my favorite," he says. I agree. "It's too vinegar-y," he says. I agree again and add that I had to sub AC vinegar for the rice. "Ahh, that would do it, " he says. I nod.

In the end, I cannot tell you how Isa's recipe is because we didn't taste it. I had too many omissions and substitutions. It's like those reviewers on Allrecipes that say, "This recipe was great. All I did was add this and this and that and that and baked it instead of fried it and ended up throwing in some meatloaf I needed to use up. I'm going to be using this recipe for years to come."

Really? Okay, I promise I won't go into a tirade about reviewers that alter recipes and review their alterations like it was the original. No matter how much I want to.

Whew. That was a close one.