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 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!

Tamarind Tofu Bowl

Another great recipe inspired by Vegan Yum Yum! This healthy tofu bowl has a sweet flavor from the tamarind sauce, but is packed full of veggies and balanced by heartiness from the brown rice.

FYI, to satisfy your veggieosity, tamarind is a pod-shaped fruit that's kind of like a cross between a fig, date, and legume (at least in packaging). It's very sweet and can make for good sauce bases and pastes, as in this recipe.

Sesame Soy Dressing & Asian Salad

This dressing is so sweet & light, I love it. The soy sauce, agave, apple cider vinegar, and sesame oil add great flavor to the rest of the ingredients. And I altered the original recipe to make it lower-fat, too! This would go great on an Asian noodle salad, either as pictured above with shaved Daikon radish "noodles," and pea shoots, or with soba noodles and veggies.

Veggieosity: Hoshigaki

Hoshi-whaaa?

Hoshigaki. No, I'd never heard of one either. But, if you're anything like me, you're curious, and want to know what the heck these things are, and what they taste like.

Kabocha-Udon Soup

This udon soup is packed with kabocha squash, mushrooms, and healthy goodness in a low-calorie meal that is easy to make.

I love the use of both udon noodles - which are thick and a little chewy- combined with sweet kabocha in this dish.  If you haven't heard of kabocha squash before, read on for veggieosity info; if you have, read on for a new recipe to use it in.

Inari

(aka Inarizushi)

Ok, I admit I didn't make these, but they are becoming one of my favorite lunch items! Never had or heard of inari? It's on the menus of many Japanese restaurants, or can often be found in the prepared sushi sections of grocery stores. Basically, inarizushi is a fried tofu/bean curd wrapper, stuffed with white sushi rice. It's simple but surprisingly good because the wrapper tastes slightly sweet since it's cooked in a sweet soy-sauce base. And it's still pretty healthy: only 2 grams of fat and about 130 calories per pouch, and each has 5 grams of protein. I like them because they are tasty, filling, but still light.

Check out this page for information about how to make your own inarizushi.

Sesame Ginger Tempeh with Soba Noodles

Adapted from: Spa Cuisine at Home, Chef Nadine, BCAE class

This Asian-inspired meal is a nice change from the ordinary, and packs healthy protein from both the soba noodles and the tempeh. Tempeh comes in a number of different flavors- I think I used a 5-grain version here, which worked well. The important thing is marinating the tempeh, since on it's on, tempeh's flavor is not really my favorite. But together, this makes for a yummy dish. I love the soba noodles. Grab your chopsticks and enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/4- 1/2 cup light soy sauce (go for low-sodium too)
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar (for cucumber) + 3 Tbs (for noodles)
  
• 1/4 cup of sesame oil + 1 tsp (for brushing pan)
  
• 3 tsp sucanat (I used plain-old brown sugar, and that works fine - 2 tsp for cucumber, 1 for tempeh)
  
• 1 ounce of wakame seaweed (can't find it? no worries, the dish doesn't lose much by leaving it out)
  
• 2 Tbs fresh cilantro, chopped
• 5 green onions, diagonally sliced
  
• 1 and 1/2 Tbs minced ginger root
• 1 cucumber, julienned
• 10 ounces Soba noodles, dry
• Sea salt to taste
• 1 shaved carrot (if desired)
  

Steps:

1. Steam the tempeh whole for 5-10 minutes. Cut into wedges.
2. Combine ginger root, soy sauce, sucanat, and sesame oil and pour over steamed tempeh. Let marinade for 1-2 hours, turning at least once.
3. Place the seaweed in a bowl and pour enough hot water over to cover it. Leave for 30min, then drain. Squeeze out any excess liquid and cut into 1/2 inch strips. Combine with cilantro and set aside.
4. Julienne the cucumber and place in separate bowl with 1/2 cup rice vinegar and 2 tsp of sucanat/brown sugar.
   
5. Prepare soba noodles according to package directions. Drain noodles in a colander and run under cold water. When they are cold, toss with the 3 Tbs of rice vinegar, the green onions, and salt.
   
6. After marinating the tempeh, heat oven to 425 degrees. Brush baking pan with small amount of oil and place tempeh wedges in pan. Pour any remaining marinade over the tempeh and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown and sauce is bubbly.
7. Add the seaweed & cilantro mix to the soba noodles.
8. To serve, place noodles on plate/bowl, garnish with cucumber salad mix and shaved carrots and add tempeh wedges.

Notes: The original recipe suggests marinating the tempeh for 2 or more hours. Not necessary! I marinated for 35min and the tempeh had plenty of flavor- actually, too much soy sauce in my mind. I'd suggest using 1/4 cup of soy sauce instead, and marinating for about 30 minutes. I'd also suggest playing around with the other sauce amounts- you want to marinate the tempeh but not drown it, so go according to your taste. Also, there are a number of places here where you can cut corners and not really sacrifice much flavor- the seaweed step, in particular, can be cut if you can't find seaweed or don't want to add an extra 30min to the preparation process. Also, I added shaved carrots to the dish; you could also slice them finely and cook them- either way, I think carrots are a good addition.