Healthy Vietnamese Bowl

I just made the healthy Vietnamese bowl the other night.  I left out the sugar that normally is in this dish and I also  had to leave out the fish sauce since my husband is allergic to all fish and fish sauces.  I hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 flank steak
• 1 package of pad tai noodles or other rice based noodle
• 1 package julienned carrots
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 1 red and 1 green jalapeno finely chopped into thin slices
• mixed greens or other desired lettuce
• sprouts
• rice vinegar (with no sugar)
• garlic chili sauce
• peanut butter or almond butter
• peanuts to top
• 3 to 4 limes

Directions:

1.  Prepare the flank steak by coating with a bit of grapeseed oil, walnut oil or olive oil, then queeze the juice of one full lime over meat.
2. Coat meat with any spicy rub you might have.  I used a Jamaican jerk one I had, but you can really use anything.  If you had a Thai spice that would work also. NOTE:  For better results you can marinate the meat with the oil, lime juice and spices an hour or so before.
3. Bake for approximately 25 to 30 minutes at 350 for medium rare.  You do not want to over cook flank steak because the meat will end up being really tough.
4. Once the meat has cooled a bit, cut into thin slices and set aside.
5. Cook the noodles and set aside.
6. Mix a small amount of rice vinegar, about a tablespoon of peanut butter or less and a small amount of chili paste.
7. Mix the peanut butter mixture with the noodles in a bowl.
8. Assemble everything into a bowl or plate, and you can top more with just the rice vinegar or you can mix some of the peanut butter mixture with more vinegar.  You don’t want to drown everything out.  Just enough to coat it.

Other things that could be good in this dish are:

• Mint
• Red peppers
• Cilantro
• Lemon Grass mixed with the rice vinegar