Soba Noodle Bowl

This soup is one of my favorites, but it originally contained chicken and chicken stock. A little tweaking produced a delicate and flavorful vegetarian dish that is mild enough to be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Soba Noodle Bowl

Begin by bringing to a boil:

• 2 cups of water
• 6 cups of vegetable stock
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (or more to taste)
• 1 lb of sliced mushrooms (I used button because they were on sale)
• 2 bunches (6oz) of buckwheat soba noodles
• 1 tbsp of finely chopped garlic
• 3 slices of peeled ginger (about 1/4 to 1/8 inch thick)
• 1 bay leaf
• freshly cracked pepper

After about 4 minutes, add:

• 5 sliced scallions
• 1/2 cup thawed frozen peas
• 2 generous cups of fresh baby spinach
• 1/2 cup of sliced sugar snap peas

Feel free to play around with any other vegetables you may have on hand, such as water chestnut, carrot, or onion. Boil two more minutes, remove ginger and bay leaf, and serve. This is one of the fastest and easiest recipes to make, especially if you buy presliced mushrooms and jarred chopped garlic. This recipe serves four, and the SparkRecipes Recipe Calculator tells me that each serving is 250 calories, has almost zero fat, and contains 3.5 grams of fiber. Healthy and delicious!

Enjoy!

Black Mushroom Cantonese Stir-Fry

I had completely different ideas about what this dish would be like--it actually turned out to be like a vegetable chow mein. It reminded me of the blue can of La Choy chow mein my mom used to buy when we were kids.

Black Mushroom Cantonese Stir-Fry

Start off by sauteing for 5 minutes a container of sliced shikate mushrooms, half a yellow onion, 3 hot small dried red chili peppers, 3 cloves of garlic, a small can of bamboo shoots, and a handful of sugar snap peas. I couldn't find these peppers at Kroger and I didn't have time to run to the Asian market, so I got some different dried peppers. They were useless and imparted no flavor. Next time I'll add a some red pepper flakes instead, which will be less hassle anyways.

Sauteing veggies.

Next mix up 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and about a cup of water (I will probably use vegetable stock next time for extra flavor). Dump over the stir-fried vegetables and start adding soy sauce, probably around half a cup. While I usually use low-sodium only, this is one occasion where regular would be appropriate. Either that or season with salt. Don't forget pepper as well.

Once the sauce is added...

Serve over rice with scallions and sesame seeds, if desired, and season with extra soy sauce as is necessary. The key to this one is really the soy sauce, so don't be afraid to be liberal with it.

Enjoy!

Dan Dan Mian

This is probably one of my favorite recipes thus far, but then again it doesn't take very much Asian food to sway me. This also happens to be one of the quickest and easiest recipes as well, and I can easily see this becoming a lunch time staple from now on. I've only eaten hours ago and I'm already craving another bowl.

Dan Dan Mian

Don't ask me what the name means, by the way. I haven't a clue.

Basically all you have to do is boil some soba noodles noodles for 4 minutes. Soba noodles are made of buckwheat, but mine had yam as well. One bunch, or about 3.5-4 ounces, of noodles is one generous serving.

Soba Noodles

Next, in a small dish you'll want to mix up the sauce. I used 1/2 teaspoon of chili paste and 2 teaspoons of rice wine vinegar. Then I added enough soy sauce to dilute the spiciness to the level I wanted. Low sodium soy sauce is always the way to go if you are using more than a teaspoon.

The chili paste and rice wine vinegar came from an Asian market.
The soy sauce and sesame seeds came from Food Lion.

One the noodles are done, drain them and return them to the pot. Dump the sauce over top and stir (you'll have to play around to get the amount of sauce right--I ended up having to use extra soy sauce). Serve them with green onion and sesame seeds on top.



So much awesomeness in such a little bowl...

This recipe also called for pickled cabbage on top but I didn't have any. Maybe next time!