Ginger Peanut Soba Noodles with Maple Tempeh

For fourth of July this year, one of the dishes I made was Oh She Glow's Rad Rainbow Raw Pad Thai. It had an amazing lime-peanut dressing that I thought would go great on a soba noodle dish. I added a bunch of veggies, some sweet maple-glazed tempeh, and voila! A yummy, easy new dinner favorite!

Sweet Potato & Roasted Carrot Soup

I love soups, especially this time of year, because they are so easy to make, and so warm and hearty. This soup is thick, creamy, full of flavor, and could be easily adapted to keep mixing things up.

Sweet Orange Tempeh and A Week of Asian Meals

Asian meals are great for summer because they are often light and quick to whip up. These noodle dishes taste great cold as well, so feel free to make the night before, have leftovers for lunch, or bring something more interesting than pasta salad to a picnic!

Easy Soba Noodle Stir-Fry- and a BIG weekend!

Sometimes work takes over life. It happens. This week has also been thrown off a little by what's going on this weekend- more on that later...  While I usually have pretty good work-life balance, that's not always the case. But that's when quick, healthy meals are the perfect option. This one, which comes from my sister-in-law, is one of those meals, and it features an ingredient I totally love: soba noodles. They rock. Buy some, throw 'em together with some veggies, and you have yourself one yummy little meal. 

Flat Noodles with Pickled Vegetables

This meal was a total winner in our house. We had my fruit sorbets for dessert too, and my husband said to me, "Ok, you can put on your blog that this is husband-approved. I loved this meal." Yep, husband (and vegan) approved. And completely easy to make, too!

Carrot Cake Cookies

 Need I say more??? Best. Cookies. Ever.

I don't know about you, but I love carrot cake. Of course you do too. On those rare occasions when I come across someone who claims they don't like carrot cake, I have been known to tell them that's impossible, there is no way anyone could not like carrot cake. (I have a similar disbelief when people say they don't like ketchup. Yes, very American of me.) BUT, even if you are one of those crazy people who says they don't like carrot cake, trust me, you will LOVE these cookies. Just take a look at the ingredients, and you'll be convinced.

Veggie-Stuffed Zucchini

Recipe adapted from The Happy Go Lucky Vegan

I'm not a big fan of peppers (actually, I just plain don't eat them- they upset my stomach) - so I was pretty excited to try a variation to stuffed peppers. I actually really loved the filling in these- it was flavorful and delicious! I ended up making extra filling and having it for lunch, and also using the sauce on a stir-fry the next night too.

The sauteed filling: I added chard & asparagus to the original recipe.

Ingredients: for 2

• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  
• 2 large zucchini (I used 1 zucchini and 1 summer squash since I love squash!)
• ~1/2 cup finely diced carrots
• ~1/2 cup finely diced celery
• 2 cups chopped spinach (or Swiss chard, or a combo- which is what I did)
• 1/4 cup chopped cashews or peanuts
• 1 Tbsp oil (for pan)
  
• 2 tsp tamari or soy sauce
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• 1/8-1/4 tsp sirracha, or to taste
• Optional: other veggies, such as a few chopped spears of asparagus, or water chestnuts or green beans.

Prepped & ready for the oven!

Steps:

1. Mix the sauce: soy sauce, vinegar, and sirracha.
2. Prep all veggies: chop celery, carrots, and leafy greens. Cut the zucchini in half and use a Tbsp or spoon to scrape out the seeds & middle. You can save this middle, roughly chop, and use it in the stuffing. (I recommend adding a spoonful of the sauce to each halved-out zucchini and letting it soak in while you prep the other veg).
3. Preheat oven to 350.
4. Heat oil in saute pan and cook the garlic for ~1 min. Add carrots, cook 2-3 min, then add celery & zucchini chopped insides, cook 1 min, then add the greens and cook ~2min. Add the sauce, and cook a few more minutes, until greens are wilted. Don't overcook the veggies, as they will cook more in the oven; but the carrots should be slightly tender. (NOTE: I also added some chopped asparagus - I cooked them separately, until almost done, and added them to the stuffing before putting it the oven. It was a good addition).
5. Place the zucchini halves on tinfoil-lined cookie sheet, and spoon in the veggie filling. Wrap the stuffed zucchinis loosely in the tinfoil, and cook ~15-20 minutes until zucchini is tender, depending on the size of your zucchini (for the squash I used, I only cooked for about 15 min, since it was smaller)

The verdict: a good recipe, but despite the filling being flavorful, overall it came out a little bland. It may be my zucchini was too big, but I think, as noted above, it would help a lot to pour a little sauce into the hollowed-out zucchini prior to adding the stuffing, and let it soak in while you are prepping the stuffing. The sauce & stuffing were delicious and flavorful, so really it just needed to soak into the base better.

My husband and I also decided, next time: 1- sub the tamari for regular soy sauce (we're not gluten free, and the tamari tastes a little off), 2- use peanuts instead of cashews (the cashews I used didn't have any flavor, and I really think peanuts would bring out more here). Also, we thought adding a little peanut sauce for more flavor would be good- try drizzling a bit over the top. I could also up the sirracha a bit more- I played it safe and just used maybe 3-4 drops, but next time, I'm adding more!

Looking forward to trying this again! Thanks to Jesse at Happy Go Lucky Vegan for the recipe inspiration!