Soba with Green Onions And Edamame

I am a cookbook hoarder. I admit it. *shuffles feet* Recently I posted a picture on FB of a whole stack of cookbooks that needed homes. A number of them are already with their new people. So what do I do? Go out and buy two more. In all fairness, I am trying to eat more vegetables (me, mind you, The Aussie wouldn't touch this stuff), and they are vegetarian cookbooks. They're also gorgeous!

Costco is a dangerous place for me when they have lovely cookbooks on display. I should blame them for my cookbook habit since I get so many of them there.

I've spent several evenings, before it gets too dark and before the bugs come out, browsing through these books. The pictures alone make me want to make these recipes. I joked that they make me want to cook eggplant, and I really don't like eggplant.  One picture that I thought looked so gorgeous was this one. I know the lighting wasn't great, but trust me, it is a beautiful picture.

The picture goes with the recipe for rice noodles with green onions and edamame. Strangely enough, considering I didn't care for edamame the first time I ever had them (mushy, like lima beans), I had a bag of edamame in the freezer. In fact, I had a lot of the ingredients from this recipe, so I made it during lunch today. Since I am absolutely INCAPABLE of actually following a recipe, mine looks nothing like this. In fact, I made a whole bunch of substitutions because I used what I had. It was delicious.

Soba Noodles With Green Onions, Edamame and Green Beans (inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe from Plenty More)

1 bundle of soba noodles
2 tsp oil
1 bunch green onions cut in to bite sized pieces
1/2 half Hatch chili pepper, diced (I had it, never had them before, didn't know if it was hot...)
2 "peppadew-style" peppers, diced (addictive little things, aren't they?)
1 cup edamame
1/2 cup cut green beans
1 tsp garlic paste *
1 tsp ginger paste *
2+ Tbsp cilantro paste *
1 tsp sesame oil
1 small drizzle of chili oil
2 Tbsp ponzu sauce
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp True Lime powder

* I adore the squeeze tubes from Gourmet Garden. I don't care what food snobs say, these are great.

Bring water to a boil in a medium sized sauce pan and cook the soba noodles for 5 minutes, or as directed on the package.

In a saute pan, over medium high heat, drizzle the oil in to the pan.  When it is hot, toss in the onions, edamame and green beans cook for a minute. (I used this time to dice the peppers) Stir in the chilies, garlic paste, ginger paste and the big squeeze of cilantro paste. (The original recipe calls for 1 cup of chopped cilantro. My little AeroGarden doesn't grow that much so I used my trusty squeeze tubes.) Stir to combine. You can either mix the "sauce" ingredients in a small bowl or just add them directly to the pan, like I did.

Drain the soba noodles and rinse quickly with cold water. Add them to the pan of vegetables to coat them in the sauce. Serve and enjoy!