Thai Soba Noodle Bowl

This delicious Thai-inspired noodle bowl came to my attention through this list of "favorites." I had most of the ingredients on hand, needing to pick up only tofu and ginger (and a new bottle of soy sauce/tamari, because we had gotten regular-sodium last time and it was terribly overpowering).  A base of garlic, ginger, lemongrass, shallot, and chile is sauteed, then simmered with coconut milk and water.  To this broth, add mushrooms and cooked soba noodles.  Bake the tofu while this cooks, and top the bowl with the tofu cubes, cilantro, and (my delicious addition) chopped peanuts.  One note of caution: you will splash this on yourself while you eat.  Leftovers are great too.

A pictureless summary

While I'm waiting for my official photographer to send me our Thanksgiving photos, I thought I'd share some notes on recipes that I haven't gotten around to posting about.  I've got a few posts started for recipes that I never photographed - since the main point of my blog is to post about the food I make and to avoid making the same mistakes twice, I'm going to share them quickly all at once, instead of dedicating a separate post to each.  Tune in later this weekend for our Thanksgiving post and for some Italy pictures!


Coconut Granola Bars
The coconut granola bars, from NY Times Recipes for Health, were a tasty treat on our vacation.  We snacked on them at the airport and on the plane, crumbled some into yogurt at the continental breakfast, and left a few for Deanna's roommates too.  They were super easy and very crunchy.  If you like those Nature Valley crunchy oats and honey granola bars, you'll like these, and you'll be eating a home-cooked, less-processed (and therefore BETTER) version of them.

Napa Cabbage Salad with Peanuts and Cilantro

I found the recipe for this salad in Deborah Madison's book, Local Flavors.   I made a number of changes to this based on what I had on hand. (It was good, but I thought it would be even better as written.) I didn't have any lettuce, so I used entirely cabbage, and a bit more than called for, a change I think was great! I omitted the scallions because I didn't have any, so I added in a shallot with the dressing. I made the dressing in the blender, and I also added the cilantro to the dressing instead of the salad. I skipped the basil and mint because I didn't have any. Next time I would add extra carrots too!

Fire-Roasted Tomato Stew with Eggplant, Bulgur, and Chickpeas
This one comes from Ancient Grains for Modern Meals.  It's been a while since I made it (eggplant season), but it was good.  I stuck a bit in the freezer for lunches.  The chickpeas are an optional addition, but I think it's always better to toss in some vegetable-based protein when you have the opportunity.  I used bulgur instead of farro, because it's cheaper and I wasn't sure how this would turn out, and also because I thought it would go better with the other flavors.  I was a fan of the golden raisins - if I remember correctly the recipe called for regular dark raisins, but I prefer the golden ones, and I thought they gave the stew an interesting dimension of flavor.

Slow-Cooker Black Bean Mushroom Chili
I made this chili recipe in the slow cooker I got for my birthday.  My old slow cooker is very temperamental and the temperatures seem to be off (thanks to the internet, I've found that this is a very common complaint with that particular brand and model).  My new one lets you set the time by the half hour, and you can jump straight to warm if that's what you want.  This chili recipe uses dried beans, which cooked very well in the 8 hours in the slow cooker.  One complaint is the fresh tomatillos I used - I don't think we scrubbed them well enough and their sticky coating lent a slightly bitter taste to the chili.  The mushrooms gave it a nice meaty element and the spices were a little unusual and interesting.  I would try this one again, maybe with the tomatillos I canned several weeks ago in place of fresh ones.

Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Roasted Peanuts

Not too long ago, I got bok choy from the choice group at our CSA.  I didn't really know what I wanted to do with it, so since it's Deborah Madison month, I flipped through her books for some ideas.  I decided on this recipe for Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Roasted Peanuts from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  It made a nice, simple, surprisingly filling weeknight dinner.

The recipe is simple: bok choy, peanuts, a little garlic and ginger, soy sauce and some cornstarch to thicken it up.  Of course, as I was already stir-frying I reached for my soy sauce only to find that I had a bit less than half the amount called for, so I used teriyaki sauce for the rest. I thought it came out delicious anyway, maybe even better.  The peanuts gave it a nice crunch and red pepper flakes make everything better.

Indian Spiced Cucumber Salad

I made this cucumber salad to use up some of the cucumbers in the fridge.  It consists of diced cucumbers, lemon juice, two diced serrano chiles, peanuts and large-flake coconut, cumin and mustard seeds, and a handful of cilantro thrown in at the end.  As I was making it I couldn't help but doubt myself.  I really had no idea what it would taste like and it was not a combination of things I would have ever thought to try.  I didn't think it could possibly taste good.  But it did.  We ate it with some store-bought whole wheat naan bread.  It would be a great side salad to surprise people with at a picnic.

I'm not ready to do my CSA post for this week yet so I figured I would post this instead and work on that tomorrow.  Cheers!

Big Curry Noodle Pot

In a little over a month, Heidi Swanson's new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day,  is coming out.  I am very, very, VERY tired of waiting for it.  She's posted an image of some of the pages, but you can't read the words beyond the title.  Very recently she posted a sampler PDF of six recipes from the book.  (I've already made one, but more on that later.)  I'm mostly caught up with her website - I've made probably 50 or 60 recipes from it, and while I have a few on the list, I'm waiting for more inspiration.  Out of all the food blogs I read (see the sidebar for my list), Heidi's is my favorite.  It got me started cooking, fueled my love of natural ingredients and whole grains and fresh produce, and continues to inspire me with new recipes every week or so.  While I'm waiting for the book to come out, I've been going through her last book, Super Natural Cooking, looking for some fun things to try.

I made the Big Curry Noodle Pot from the book partly because we have been eating a lot of Thai curry over the past few months, and partly because of the recommendations on the 101 Cookbooks Library.  I happened to have everything on hand except the peanuts, which only required a quick trip around the corner.  It worked out well for a weeknight.  Now that I've tried it as-written, there are a whole bunch of things I'd love to try out with this.  Most importantly, it was not spicy enough.  The recipe calls for some Thai red curry paste as well as turmeric.  Too much turmeric, I think, and not enough curry paste.  I might try out some red curry powder instead of the turmeric, or just more of the paste.  I would also like to try this with chicken or shrimp.  The tofu was better left over than it was right after I'd made it, but I still am just not a huge fan of home-cooked tofu.  Plus, Ken does not like it.  I think chicken would be a better fit than shrimp here, but either could work.  One last idea - instead of chopping the onions, I'd like to try them thinly sliced instead.  The noodles fought the onions for fork space, and the length of the noodles gave them an advantage.  It was difficult to get much onion, or if you did, there weren't many noodles.  I think thinly slicing them would make it easier to grab a bunch of each.