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!

Easy Coconut Seafood Curry Soup

One of the real pluses to working from home, aside from having the critters with me all day and wearing pajamas yoga pants every day whenever I want, is being able to cook whatever I feel like for lunch if I have the ingredients on hand. Today I started thinking about seafood. After a bit of rummaging around in the freezer, I found the last bag of mixed seafood. I buy the huge bag from Costco and then divide it in to smaller portions that are easier to store in my freezer. Also in the freezer were some individually wrapped portions of cod, some frozen homemade chicken stock and a bag of stir fry vegetables. From the pantry came a can of lite coconut milk, cloves of garlic and an onion, from the refrigerator came half a can of mushrooms that were leftover from last night, a quarter of a tomato, half an orange bell pepper, and red curry paste. (Note: When I was done cooking, I added a splash of rice vinegar, soy sauce, a squeeze of lime and snipped in some Thai basil that is growing in my aero garden)

Since I am all about the gadgets, I pulled out my Instant Pot (don't tell the Cuisinart PC that I brought this back from the ranch) and set it to saute and drizzled in a little oil. While it was heating up, I thawed the chicken stock in the microwave and sliced up  half of an onion in to half moons (lengthwise strips). In to the cooker they went to soften. Next, I sliced the pepper in to thin strips, sliced the garlic, and tossed them in to cook. I had a good rounded spoonful of curry paste left in my jar, so I spooned it in, stirring it in to the veggies. I cancelled the saute mode, and literally dumped in my frozen stir fry veggies, the mushrooms and tomato, the frozen seafood mix (there was about two cups worth in my bag), two frozen cod fillets, 1 cup and a half of chicken stock and the can of coconut milk. I closed the lid to the IP, set it to high pressure for 5 minutes and walked away. In hindsight, I could have done a little less time, but the fish fillets were thick and I wanted to make sure they were cooked through.

Here it is just before closing the pot. It could have been an epic failure. Since I don't often use recipe, I just never know if something will turn out as well as I think it will. For the most part they do, but cooking with a pressure cooker adds a level of unknown if I've never made something before.

When I was releasing the steam I could smell the aroma of seafood, and it smelled good. Fingers were crossed. There was some splatter on the inside of the pot, but the soup looked great. The fish was cooked beautifully, and so was the calamari. Shrimp are easy to over cook, but I didn't mind so much since they were small. The frozen veggies were soft, but that was to be expected, and helped make the soup soft and soothing. Since shrimp can be salty, I didn't add any salt in the beginning. I tasted the soup, added a splash of soy sauce, a splash of rice vinegar, a squeeze of lime juice (I couldn't find my TrueLime because it was sitting on my desk next to my water glass), and snipped in some Thai basil leaves. I am so please with how this turned out. If you were cooking on the stove, you could add the shrimp last so they aren't over cooked, but I just wanted to see how it would turn out if I basically dumped everything in and set it to cook. It didn't disappoint.

One Pot Peanut Butter Noodles

I am fascinated by the concept of one pot cooking, whether it's stove top, slow cooker, pressure cooker. Doesn't matter. Being able to throw a bunch of ingredients together and have it come out tasting great is a magical thing. A friend posted a link on FB the other evening for Thai style one-pot noodles. One pot = win, Thai style noodles = huge win. As it turns out, there are a lot of variations out there, so what I'm posting is nothing new and earth shaking. It is, however, very tasty. Because I wanted to experiment, I did use the pressure cooker. If I'd made this on the stove, I would have added the vegetables later so they still had crunch to them.

(I can't wait for the food photography session at Fitbloggin)

One Pot Asian Peanut Butter Noodles 

1 package of spaghetti or linguine (break in half if needed to fit them in the pot)
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cloves garlic or one big squeeze of garlic paste (I love garlic in a tube)
1 large knob of ginger, peeled (don't cut up because you'll fish it out before serving)
2 large carrots, peeled and cut in to 2 inch sections and cut in to thick strips
1 large red bell pepper cut in to strips
2 scallions cut in to 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup of dry roasted peanuts
2 T peanut butter (I used chunky because that's what we have on hand)
1 T brown sugar
1 T soy sauce
1 T fish sauce (can be omitted for vegan version)
1 T tamarind paste
1 t red pepper flakes

Garnish:

chopped peanuts
cilantro
squeeze of lime juice (I used a few dashes of my trusty TrueLime shaker)

Conventional: In a large pot over medium high heat, lay your dry noodles on the bottom, covering them with the vegetables and other ingredients. Add the vegetable broth, making sure that the noodles are covered. Bring liquid to a boil, reduce heat, and cook for 8-9 minutes, until the noodles are tender. Stir frequently to made sure the noodles are not sticking together. The sauce will thicken upon standing.  Spoon in to bowls, garnish with chopped peanuts, cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

Pressure cooker: Layer all of the ingredients as above, making sure the noodles are covered by the vegetable broth. Lock lid in place and set for low pressure for 7 minutes.  When timer goes off, quick release the pressure.

Note: The vegetables are not crispy when cooked in the pressure cooker. The whole dish is very soft, so that wasn't a bad thing. If you want crisp vegetables, make your strips very thin and put them in to briefly cook after the pressure is released. They will warm up while the sauce thickes.

Update: I added a splash of rice vinegar to the cold noodles this morning. Awesome! This would be a great addition for the hot noodles, too, but add before serving, not before cooking.