Soba noodles with Thai peanut sauce

My first post of 2011! After quite a day in the kitchen, I might add. For some reason, things were not going smoothly. Simple things which should have been done quickly took a long time. The tofu was sticking to the pan. I added ajwain instead of sesame seeds to the oil and had to start again. It’s okay… all’s well that ends well. And the final product was really good. Much better than greasy take out!

I used the recipe found here, but made a few changes because I found that one a bit bland.

• 8 oz soba noodles (or any)
• 1 cup broccoli florets
• 1/4 cup natural peanut butter (unsalted, unsweetened)
• 2 TBS Tamari sauce or low sodium soy sauce (I love this one)
• 2 TBS water
• 1 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1/2  lemon, juiced
• 3/4 inch fresh ginger, finely grated
• 1 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp hot jalepeno sauce or chili paste
• handful of cilantro/coriander leaves
• few scallion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup shelled unsalted peanuts

Begin by making the sauce. In your mixie or blender add peanut butter, tamari, water, vinegar, lemon juice, ginger, brown sugar, red chili, hot sauce, and cilantro leaves and grind it together to form the sauce. No cooking required!

Boil or steam the broccoli. Boil the soba noodles according to the package (mine says 3 minutes) be careful not to overcook them because they  can turn mushy faster than regular pasta noodles. You could also use rice noodles or spaghetti.

Stir it all together and voila! Done.

I served this with Tofu and swiss chard stir fry inspired by this lovely blogger, but with my own sauce, which I will blog about another time.

We also had some simple chili-garlic-sesame green beans. JF loves the french cut ones. Simply heat oil in the pan, add garlic, then red chilie flakes or broken red chilies and sesame seeds. Then green beans (thaw or heat them first if using frozen) and salt. Instead of sesame you could also toast some chopped almonds in the pan before adding the garlic. That is sooo good.

Sending this to Bookmarked recipes by Aipi and Priya and Hearth and Soul at a moderate life

Roasted Broccoli

OK, ignore that ONE stem of broccoli with the apparent “dandruff” problem. That was supposed to be the parmesan. What was I thinking? Have I grossed you out? Still here? Good…

Anyways, I really like broccoli a lot. But I tend to have it with pasta or in an omelette.  I saw this very simple and different recipe and decided to try it out. Surprisingly, it tasted similar to kale chips. The flavor is concentrated and it has some crisp edges… no soggy broccoli here!

Here’s what I did:

• 1 head broccoli- washed, dried, cut into long thin stalks
• 2-3 cloves of garlic sliced thin
• ev olive oil
• red chili powder/cayenne
• salt
• fresh ground black pepper
• lemon juice
• 1/4c toasted almonds, chopped (original called for pine nuts)
• lemon zest- optional
• parmesan cheese (optional- I preferred it without)

Preheat oven to 425.

Try to wash the broccoli ahead of time so it can dry. If it is still wet it will not roast properly (will stay soft) and maybe the oil (flavors) wont adhere to it. Mix together all the ingredients up to lemon juice. Spread in one layer on a baking sheet. Try not to crowd them. Leave space so they don’t steam each other when they release the moisture. We wouldn’t want that, right? No, we want caramelisation and roastiness!

Bake for around 20 minutes. Don’t let it get too dark or it will taste burnty. (making up new words is fun!)

Then sprinkle on the lemon juice, zest. almonds and parmesan. And start eating because these are best while still hot!

Little Billie ran outside for a jaunt in the snow before getting his picture taken.

I looked around a little and found lots of bloggers loving this. Check them out too.

Shootfirsteatlater, amateurgourmet, purplefoodie, ezrapoundcake.

I’m submitting this to Healing Foods Event – Broccoli hosted by Sayali and Siri.