Who knew basil was so good in thai food? Why have I never tried this!

I don't think I'll ever forget our first summer in Puerto Varas, Chile. All summer my sister and I rode our bikes to town on the weekends because there was this gorgeous park that we could cut through with all of these steep trails and paths. Our house was on top of a really tall hill so it was downhill the whole way and so much fun. (It’s coming home that our legs paid for that).

The town would be crazy busy when we went during the high season. We'd have to get off of our bikes and walk just to get through the crowds and the food trucks stationed everywhere and tents with open markets selling na-na to the tourists all summer.

Some of the days when we'd got to the beach it was so packed you couldn’t see any sand, just a very colorful sea of color and movement. What I don’t understand is how they could stand getting in the water when the heat of the day only lasts for a few hours. It was never enough to warm the chilling water. But anyway, let's talk recipe.

I had all of this beautiful fresh basil that I wanted to use while it’s still in season. That’s what inspired this recipe. I didn’t have any meat on hand so I decided that it would be a good time to go meatless.

But, yeah, this is a vegan recipe if you skip the fish sauce, oh, and the pad thai paste (pretty sure that has fish in it too). Since I’m always writing recipes and categorizing them I end up inadvertently labeling them as I make them. For example, this recipe can be corn free if you just skip the baby corn and the little bit of cornstarch for the slurry, it’s gluten-free, it’s vegetarian, it’s vegan, it’s egg free, dairy free, nut free, and geez, what’s left after that I don’t know.

It’s still a great recipe that you definitely should try even if you’re not vegan or gluten intolerant or allergic to dairy, etc. Oh, and a quick note on the ingredients: the hot red pepper I used was this kind that we happened to get at our produce stand this week and, I think , was called a rocoto pepper. At least that’s the closest thing I could find when I searched the internet for the name of a red pepper with black seeds (they were really hot).

You can use any kind of spicy pepper, sauce, or dried spice. It’s just to add your desired level of kick. Then on the pad thai paste. I’m not sure if that can be purchased where you live but it is such a great flavor addition to this recipe. However, if you can’t find it you could probably sub pad thai sauce or just skip it.

As always, the recipe is available upon request. The first request gets an upvote.

ALL CONTENT IS MINE AND ORIGINAL! All of these food photos were taken with my Nikon D5300 and my favorite Lens, the Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G. You can find out more in my INTRO POST. And by the way, my intro post did a huge $0.21