Thai food is by far my most favorite cuisine, especially ever since I became vegan. There are just so many vegan friendly Thai restaurants around as well as vegan Thai food dishes—from fresh vegetable spring rolls and tofu satay to curry and vegetable tom kha soup. Earlier this week, I had a sudden craving for vegan Thai pineapple fried rice. I already had most of the necessary ingredients since they're my vegan cooking staples (brown rice, quinoa, stir-fry veggies and cashews), so I asked my husband to just buy some raisins and canned pineapple (although fresh pineapple is better, or course). I also had Sweet Earth Natural Foods Curry Seitan in the fridge and knew it would be a good addition to the vegan Thai pineapple fried rice recipe.

The recipe below is adapted from a good recipe I found on Yup It's Vegan blog. It yields about 6 servings.

Ingredients

For the stir-fry sauce:

• 3-4 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 3 dashes of curry powder
• 2 dashes of fresh ground black pepper

For the fried rice:

• 1 heaping tablespoon coconut oil (or whatever cooking oil you prefer)
• 1/2 medium red onion (original recipe calls for red onion but I used yellow because it's what I had at home)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 to 1-1/2 inch ginger root, peeled and cut in thin slivers
• 3/4 to 1 cup of pineapple chunks (I used canned)
• 3 cups of brown rice and quinoa (Tip: day-old rice/quinoa is always better for fried rice/quinoa because it's not as soft and mushy; or you can cook it and then put it in the fridge to let it harden a little bit)
  • To cook brown rice and quinoa blend in a rice cooker: Mix 1-1/2 cups of brown rice with 1-1/2 cups of quinoa. Add 4-1/2 cups of water. Add about 1 tablespoon of coconut oil (or whatever cooking oil you prefer). Stir occasionally. Takes about 20 minutes to cook in the rice cooker.
• stir-fry veggies (broccoli, sugar snap peas, green beans, carrots, celery, mushrooms, green and red bell peppers) 
• 1/2 cup of chopped cashews
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of raisins (depends on how much you like raisins)
• Sweet Earth Natural Foods Curry Seitan, cut into thin squares
• Garlic powder to taste
• Salt to taste
• Curry powder to taste (in addition to the one used in the sauce)

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, mix the soy sauce with the maple syrup, curry powder and black pepper.
2. Heat a large wok over medium heat, and add the coconut oil. Once the oil is hot enough, add the onions and stir around for about 30 seconds. Keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn; if they start to cook too fast, lower the heat a little.
3. Next, add the garlic and ginger and stir around until onions become translucent (about 1 minute).
4. If you lowered the heat earlier, turn it back up to medium or medium-high and add all the veggies. Cook just long enough until the broccoli is crisp-tender (it helps to cut broccoli into smaller pieces so it cooks faster). You can cover with a lid to help steam the broccoli a little. It takes about 3 minutes to cook if fresh, or about 5 minutes if frozen. Taste the broccoli to see if it's to your liking.
5. Add the rice-quinoa, seitan, pineapple, raisins and cashews to the wok. Stir thoroughly, making sure the rice and quinoa are completely mixed in with the vegetables. Drizzle the sauce all over and stir frequently. Make sure the sauce coats the rice and vegetables.
6. Add more curry powder until the rice-quinoa take on the bright yellow color of curry, and add garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste. This step really all depends on which flavors you want more pronounced. If you want it more sweet, add more raisins and pineapple or even a little bit of the pineapple juice (if using canned pineapple).
7. You can garnish with green onion and chopped nuts.

Serve and enjoy!