Cooking for a "not-too-anal" vegan: My menu tonight.

[eyesroll]

("not-too-anal" = she's not checking at restaurants to find out if the rolls have eggs in them, nor does she check her sugar brands to make sure the process is vegan, but she avoids animal products when she can, and I'm not going to sabotage that.)

I seem to fall back on Asian food when I need to cook for vegetarians/vegans -- and it makes sense.

So, in that vein, I will be serving:
• Chapchae (mung bean thread noodles stir-fried with vegetables)
• Cucumber salad (cukes, rice vinegar, sugar)
• Bottled kimchi
• BEANS O FIRE (really just regular grean beans that ended up with way too much sambal last time; I'll hold back for guests.)

A gewurztraminer should pair nicely with this.

I also have a quart of soy "ice cream" (chocolate brownie) in the freezer, which we bought last week but haven't touched, so that should make a good dessert if we get that far.

[Warpy]

1. Sounds fine

Some day, when you're feeling particularly adventurous, deep fry those bean threads. Just heat a few inches of oil in a wok, dump about half the block of dry noodles in at a time and stand back. They fry up in less than 10 seconds.

They greatly increase in size and become airy, white and delicately crunchy, a beautiful transformation.

They get soggy when they come into contact with wet foods, so put them next to the stirfry, not under it.

[eyesroll]

2. Hm...I've done that with rice noodles, never with bean threads.

I'll need to try that...

[Stinky The Clown]

3. You're right about the gewurtz ........

it pairs really well with Asian food.