Nutty Noodles

Once again I cooked from the March 2007 Everyday Food magazine. I liked the ideal of a boil and toss meal - it would be easy and delicious right? How could Martha lead me astray. It looked so delicious in the picture. And then....I thought very hard about the idea of boiled tofu. The recipe suggested BOILING tofu. Right. Obviously I was going to have to change this recipe up a little. The boiled tofu had to go. I begrudgingly tolerate tofu, but I like it better fried like in pad thai; it gets a nutty flavour.

One of my flickr contacts, tiny banquet committee had a nice picture of some peanut-sesame noodles. Perfect. I would have a boil, fry and toss meal. Sure there were a few more dishes, but no boiled tofu.


I was pretty happy with how this turned out. Although the sauce is very flavourful, the blandness of the noodles counters it. I think maybe the sauce needs something else - I will definitely be experimenting with again: I think chicken might be nice instead of tofu and I would like trying to make the sauce a little more sour. I will keep you posted if I can improve it.

Nutty Noodles
(1 serving)

for the sauce:
2 tbsp peanut butter
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp sesame oil

everything else:
2 tsp vegetable oil
3 oz tofu, in bite sized pieces
2 oz snow peas
1 carrot, in ribbons (see note below)
4 mushrooms, quatered
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

4 oz pasta (linguine or spaghetti)

1. Whisk sauce ingredients together. (I did this in a 1 cup measuring cup with a fork).
2. When you start cooking the pasta, start frying the tofu in the vegetable oil. Once the tofu starts looking golden (2-3 mins) add the mushrooms. Cook the mushrooms and tofu for about another 3 mins, until the mushrooms get that dark cooked look. Finally add the snow peas and carrot. If your noodles are almost done, you can put a lid on the tofu mixture to speed the cooking of the carrot and snow peas. They will only need a minute.
3. Drain noodles and add to vegetable mixture. Toss with sauce. If sauce is too thick, thin it with some pasta water.
4. Plate, and top with some toasted sesame seeds

Carrot Ribbons

This is a great technique. I use my regular vegetable peeler to cut make long ribbons from the carrot. This is easy at first, but as the carrot gets thiner I found it helpful to rotate it by 90 degrees, and then make more ribbons.

Actually Delicious Lentil Soup

I eat a lot of lentil soup. It's cheap - if not exactly cheerful - and a good source of fibre and vegetarian protein. Lentil soup was basically invented for health conscious grad students. However, even though I make it all they time, I have never made a truly delicious one until now. The problem with lentils is they can taste "earthy". My strategy to keep things from tasting like dirt is to put as much tasty stuff in the broth I cook the lentils in as I can and hope for the best.

I used a mix of lentils, about 1/3 a cup of brown lentils and 2/3 a cup green lentils. In general I prefer the taste of the green lentils, but I have the brown ones to use up.

I roughly followed a recipe from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, but I had the small piece of left over beef to use up. This recipe was the result.

Sadly, even though the soup was tasty, it is impossible for me to take a good looking picture of lentil soup.
This recipe makes 4 servings.

Delicious Lentil Soup

6 oz beef cut into 1 cm cubes
1/2 carrot cut into lentil sized pieces
1/2 onion finely chopped
1 red pepper also cut into lentil sized pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
4 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water
1 tbsp oil
1 cup lentils, picked over

1. Brown beef in a dutch oven, in batches if the pot seems like it will otherwise be crowded. Remove beef and reserve, fry onion until it starts to turn golden. Add 1/2 cup of water to the pan to deglaze it.
2. Return beef to dutch oven and add bay leaf, garlic, carrots and red pepper. I also added a big pinch of kosher salt. Add 2 more cups of liquid and the lentils.
3. Cook covered for about 35mins until lentils are soft, stirring occasionally. If you notice the lentils have absorbed most the liquid, add a little more water or broth .

I reserved a little broth because I find the leftover soup will continuing to absorb liquid. Then when I am going to eat it the next day I add a little broth to thin it out.