Spicy peanut noodles

Spicy peanut noodles with tofu.

I was busy organizing my closet today. It makes an amazing difference when you have cubbies, shelves and shoe racks to organize everything.

I still have a couple loads of laundry left to do and then I will have everything done.

And I am finding it weird to live in a clutter free place. I am working hard at resisting the urge to fill it with stuff.

So, to keep myself distracted from the 'urge to create chaos' I made some noodles in peanut sauce.

The noodles were topped with a generous amount of green onion, red bell pepper and sesame seeds.

The best part of the dish was the tofu. I let the cubes of tofu hang out in the peanut sauce while the noodles cooked - they soaked up the sauce - Yum!

 

Spicy peanut noodles with tofu

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 servings of the pasta of your choice cooked al dente
1/3 cup of peanut butter
1/3 cup of soy sauce
2 tsp of hot chili paste
2 tsp of low sodium chicken broth
1 Tbsp of rice wine vinegar
1 tsp of sugar (if using a sweet peanut butter you may want to omit this)
1/2 tsp of freshly grated ginger
1/3 cup of unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup of firm tofu, cubed
1/2 scallion, diced
1/3 cup of chopped red bell pepper
sesame seeds
sesame oil


Instructions:

In a sauce pan over low heat combine the peanut butter, soy sauce, chili paste, chicken broth, rice wine vinegar, sugar, ginger and soy milk. Whisk until well combined.

Drop the tofu into the peanut sauce and make sure it is well coated. 

Boil your pasta in another pan and when it is al dente drain it and return it to the pot. Drizzle a small amount of sesame oil over the noodles and toss. When they are well coated they should have a nice slide.

Spoon the peanut sauce over the noodles - being careful to not disturb the tofu or it will become mushy.

Toss the noodles till they are well coated with the sauce. Place the noodles in a bowl and scoop out the tofu and place on top. Garnish with liberal amounts of diced green onion, red bell pepper and sesame seeds.
 

Breakfast noodles

Breakfast noodles.

One of my favorite things to have for breakfast is noodles topped with tons of vegetables. 

This morning the bowl contained: one serving of egg noodles cooked al dente, green beans, mushrooms and baby bok choy.

My usual method: I cook the noodles in water till 3/4 done. Then vegetables go into the pot and simmer for about 3 minutes. I drain the noodles and vegetables and put everything back in the pot with a 1/2 cup of chicken broth. 

Then the seasonings come into play. Today I wanted a nice balance between salty and sweet so I added in 1 tsp of Hoisin sauce, 2 tsp of soy sauce and a drizzle of sesame oil.

A sprinkle of scallions and red pepper went on top.

The oil is key to making the noodles glossy and giving them a nice slide so you don't come up with a huge clump when you go to slurp them down.

Today I am going to tackle cleaning out my car which is a scary prospect.

Hopefully it will all be stuff that is easy to toss. The worst part about the de-cluttering is finding a place for the stuff that I want to keep. 

It is always much easier if I can just pitch it.

Happy Friday all!

Tostada

Tostada with homemade refried beans.

I had a can of pinto beans in the cupboard that I wanted to use up.

The beans went into a pan with some cumin, pepper and vegetable broth.

I let them simmer for about and hour and then blended them with a hand blender.

Homemade refried beans with Follow Your Heart vegan mozzarella.

Then I topped the beans and cheese with spinach, avocado, shredded carrot, shredded cabbage, chopped scallions and salsa.

Does anyone have an idea about how to eat a tostada with some semblance of grace?

After the first bite things got very messy...

I am setting this post to upload this afternoon and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I manage to get in at least a small nap before then.

Wish me luck!

Greens in the morning

Brown rice with broccoli rabe, carrot and Miso Mayo with a topping of Udo's oil.

Lol, if you saw the post with just the picture - yeah, that was my big pre-caffeine mistake of the day:-)

And what you see in the first picture was not my breakfast. It was, in fact, the dogs treat.

They have been eating grass again so I figured they would enjoy some greens. They went crazy over this. And, yes, they ate all of the greens and came back into the kitchen trying to sniff out more.

My dogs are strange.

This was my breakfast:

Breakfast bowl with brown rice, black beans, carrots, broccoli rabe.

 I started with the rainbow carrots.

The carrots went into the steamer along with two stalks of broccoli rabe (chopped). 

When the vegetables were tender, I took the pan off the heat and assembled the dogs treat. 

I grabbed my leftover brown rice from the fridge and put a tsp of the rice on the dish, some broccoli rabe, a piece of carrot, a dollop of Miso Mayo and drizzled all with some Udo's oil.

A heavenly dog treat.

Then I went on with assembling my breakfast. I emptied the steamer pot of all but about 1 Tbsp of the steaming liquid. 

I tossed in 1/2 cup of brown rice into the pot along with the carrots and broccoli rabe. 

Then came the spices. A pinch of cumin, cayenne pepper, 1Tbsp of salsa and a pinch of salt. 

At this point I still wanted to boost the flavor so I chopped up one scallion and that went into the pot along with 1/2 cup of cooked black beans (rinsed).


I was liking the way this was coming together but I wanted to boost the protein a bit so I lightly beat one whole egg and stirred that into the pan.

I topped the bowl with more salsa and a bit of avocado.

The pot cooked on medium heat until the egg was cooked through. 

I have a lot of greens in my fridge. My game plan is to try to incorporate greens into every meal I eat this week.

Wish me luck!