I discover so many random videos through Youtube’s “autoplay” function. I once fell asleep watching a vegan recipe channel and woke up in the middle of the night to a video of a woman making nineteen definitely NOT vegan meals for her adult son who had recently moved out. The video went on for what seemed like hours and the meals were not in the least bit appealing to a vegetarian, but there was something oddly comforting about watching this mum chat away about frozen meatballs and her adult son while she prepared meal after meal. The comments following the video were the funniest part, especially the first one: “Who fell asleep and woke up to this?” Lol.

I discovered today’s dish through autoplay as well. I wandered away from my laptop yesterday and when I returned, there was Kenji making an apparently famous dish called “San Francisco Garlic Noodles.” I swear I’ve been to San Francisco at LEAST half a dozen times and have never heard of this famous dish, but he was raving about it, so I thought I’d have a whack at veganizing it. I researched a bunch of recipes, including this one and this one and came up with the following…

Vegan San Francisco Garlic Noodles

Whisk together and set aside:

• 2.5 TBS soy sauce
• 1/2 TBS hoisin sauce*
• 2 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce (or 1 tsp vegan Worchestershire powder, which I have)
• 2 tsp DIY vegan fish sauce
• 1 tsp Maggi sauce (if you don’t have any, just leave it out)
• ¼ teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 pinch cayenne

*The original recipe calls for 1 TBS oyster sauce, so I researched vegan replacements and found the best proximity is 1:1 hoisin sauce/soy sauce. Thus, I upped the soy sauce by 1/2 a TBS and added 1/2 TBS of hoisin to replace 1 TBS of oyster sauce.

Next, melt in a medium saucepan:

• 4 TBS vegan butter

Add and saute until fragrant (for about a minute):

• 8 cloves minced garlic AND
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Quickly mix in the sauce you set aside and remove from heat.

Meanwhile, cook four cakes of ramen noodles for four minutes. You can also use spaghetti noodles, which is the more traditional approach to the recipe.

When the noodles are done, do not drain them; rather, use tongs to remove the noodles from the water into the sauce pan, so you’ll get some starchy water. Mix the noodles well into the sauce. If the noodles seem dry, add a little more of the starchy water until smooth and creamy.

Serve up with chopped chives or green onions and a big dollop of spicy chili crisp–this stuff is bomb–Bid brought us a jar in the summer, and we’re falling in love with it fast! Read all about The Cult of Spicy Chili Crisp here!

And our San Franciso Garlic Noodles are indeed as delicious as everyone on Youtube claims!!

We’re having our noodles with some leftover chickwheat kebabs James cooked on the grill last evening. I added some sauteed portobello mushrooms as well. So delicious!!

And the song of the day is Van Morrison singing “I Get a Kick out of You.”