So I love pad Thai. I made it a bit healthier with a recipe I ripped out of an old Cooking Light magazine and stuffed into my file folder of recipes. (Gotta organize that someday.)

I used brown rice noodles to eliminate empty white carbs, the No. 1 offender for those of us trying to maintain the weight loss we’ve achieved (or maintain the trim self you’ve always had, lucky duck). They tasted great to me. I could barely tell.

Then, I used sustainably trawl-caught South Carolina shrimp, which I bought at Mermaid’s Garden Fish Market in Brooklyn, this super-cute little place a block east of Prospect Park. They give you a lemon or lime with your purchase.

I bought fish sauce (after hunting for it forever at the grocery store) that didn’t have “natural flavoring” or “anchovy flavor” in the ingredient list. And the soy sauce was low sodium. Crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, scallions and — oh! — fresh, fluffy basil flourishing from the pot on our balcony, where we (my boyfriend David and I) have our little potted garden of herbs, fruit, vegetables and flowers for our first growing season in our Brooklyn apartment.

There weren’t enough vegetables to suit me, so I added a side of garlic sautéed Swiss chard. Wa-la.