Meatless Mondays: Light Soba Noodles

Soba noodles have been a real favorite around here recently.  When I’m not in the mood for a dish as substantial as soba noodles with peanut sauce and shrimp, I like something lighter.  This fresh-flavored dish uses veggies to bulk up the whole-grain soba noodles, so you get a satisfying serving size while keeping your caloric intake reasonable.

This dish takes less than 20 minutes to put together (maybe 15, depending on how fast your water boils!).  It's vegan.  If you would like, you can pan-fry or broil some tofu for extra protein. Or, if it's not a meatless Monday in your house, shrimp might be really nice too.

Light Soba Noodles with Veggies

You can customize the veggies in this dish however you like – snow peas would be delicious here.  

Yield: 2 servings

INGREDIENTS

3 oz soba noodles

1 bell pepper, stem and seeds removed, thinly sliced

1 cup shitake mushrooms, sliced

1 green onion, sliced

¼ cup cilantro, chopped

1 lemon, zest and juice

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp light soy sauce

Sesame seeds

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook soba noodles according to package directions. (If your directions are in Japanese, and you don't read Japanese, it probably says to boil them for 6 minutes.)

2. While noodles cook, heat a skillet over medium heat. Spray with cooking spray, and add peppers and mushrooms.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are cooked and peppers are tender-crisp.

3. Combine lemon zest, juice, sesame oil, and soy sauce in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

4. When the soba noodles are finished cooking, drain and place in a medium mixing bowl. Add the cooked vegetables, green onion and cilantro, and dressing. Toss to combine. Portion into two bowls, and serve sprinkled with sesame seeds. 

I didn't have any leftovers to test my theory on, but I think this would be delicious as cold leftovers too.  If you try it, let me know!  

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Meatless Mondays: Cucumber and Peanut Salad

For Meatless Mondays, I usually try to feature a main-course type dish that's either vegetarian or vegan. Today, I'm going to break with that convention a bit, because I want to share this salad with you. It's more of a side than a main course, but would work well paired with a soup.  It's quick and simple to prepare, and the flavors meld beautifully: sweet cucumbers with licorice-y fennel and crunchy roasted peanuts.

Salads like this are essential spring and summer dishes for me. Simple vegetables, served cold, are the perfect complement to sweltering evenings. It always amazes me how a few unassuming ingredients can combine into something so delicious. 

The recipe uses salt to draw out some of the water of the cucumbers. Don't worry, this salad isn't very salty - you will rinse the salt off of the cucumbers before combining them with the other ingredients.

You might notice that there are some pretty little herb plants sitting behind this salad. I saw them at the grocery this weekend and couldn't resist - at less than $3 each, these thyme and oregano plants were an easy addition to our gardening plans.

This recipe is vegan-possible: some vegans don't consume honey, but agave nectar or another sweetener can easily be substituted.

Cucumber and Peanut Salad
I call for persian cucumbers here, which are smaller and sweeter than regular cucumbers and seedless. Feel free to substitute regular cucumbers if you cannot find the persian variety; whether or not you remove the seeds is up to personal preference. 
Yield: 6 side-dish servings

INGREDIENTS
6 persian cucumbers (about 4 cups chopped)
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp fennel seeds
2/3 cup roasted peanuts, crushed

DIRECTIONS
1. Slice the cucumbers into half-moon shapes, about 1/4 inch thick. Place in a colander and toss with the salt. Place the colander in the sink, and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. While the cucumbers sit, combine honey, lemon zest and juice, and vinegar in a small bowl and whisk to combine. To crush peanuts, place in a zip-top baggie and roll with a rolling pin a few times.
3. Rinse the cucumbers thoroughly, and drain well. Place in a mixing bowl. 
4. Heat a skillet over medium-low heat. Add oil and fennel seeds, and cook, stirring constantly, about 1 minute. Pour this hot oil over the cucumbers, and toss to combine.
5. Add lemon dressing and toss again. Stir in the peanuts shortly before serving.

In other somewhat-related-to-gardening news, we're having trouble with a few birds trying to build a nest on our deck - on top of a light that is far too small, so their nests keep falling apart, covering our deck in mud and sticks. I'm not sure how to convince them to give it up, because it's clearly a poor choice of location, but I'm getting tired of cleaning up after them constantly! I think they're robins. Any ideas?

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How to Make Great Kale Chips

Kale chips are one of those foods that have blossomed from total obscurity to a fairly mainstream presence. It seems that there are as many posts on making kale chips as there are food bloggers. So why am I making my own? During the several years that I have been making kale chips, I've followed many different recipes. Each one seemed to prescribe a different time and temperature and even method for baking the chips. Through trial and error (and a lot of burnt kale) I figured out what works, what's important, and what is unnecessary.

If you haven't had kale chips before, give them a try! The leaves turn crispy in the oven, and have a taste akin to good broccoli. Some folks have touted these as a less-guilt potato chip swap - I don't agree with that assessment. If you really want potato chips, these don't taste like potatoes. But they are crunchy and salty and great to snack on.

Use whatever seasoning or spices you like, even just plain salt. I usually use a blend of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika.

How to Make Kale Chips
Yield: depends on amount of kale used, usually 3-4 cups per bunch

You will need: 
1 bunch kale leaves (any variety)
Spray oil (like 100% canola oil cooking spray)
Baking sheet
Seasoning

How to make kale chips:
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Wash and dry your kale. You can use a salad spinner to dry the leaves, or pat them dry with paper towels. Sometimes kale is quite muddy, so don't skip this step.
Step 3: Tear kale leaves into chip-sized pieces, and discard the tough stems. I like pieces 1-2 inches across.
Step 4: Spread kale leaves on a large baking sheet in a single layer. Spray with oil (100% canola oil cooking spray works well for this). Toss the leaves with your hands and spray again. Sprinkle on your seasonings, and toss one more time, so all the leaves have a thin coating of oil and seasoning. Arrange in a single layer.
Step 5: Bake at 300 degrees for 18-20 minutes. Wait until the leaves are crispy (no soggy bits), but still bright green. If your oven bakes unevenly, turn the pan once during baking. 

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Meatless Mondays: Roasted Eggplant and Tempeh

Roasted eggplant is one of those foods I never get tired of. I like oven-roasted veggies in general, like these potatoes, but eggplant probably tops the list. This recipe pairs a sweet and garlicy sauce with some simple roasted ingredients for a dinner that's big on flavor but not on fussy. 

Tempeh is a vegan protein source made from fermented grains, usually including soybeans. It has a nutty taste that mixes well with roasted veggies. I buy mine at Trader Joe's, and it's both organic and affordable - look for it near the tofu.

Unlike most of my other Meatless Mondays series posts, this one takes a bit longer, because the veggies have to roast. I'd allow an hour or so for preparing and cooking this dish.

This dish is vegan-possible, because the feta cheese I used on top is not vegan, but the rest of the dish is vegan.  Simply omit the cheese or use a vegan substitute.

Roasted Eggplant and Tempeh
I used butternut squash here, cubed and frozen when squash was in-season. You can substitute the squash of your choice, or sweet potatoes. Be sure to cut the vegetables and tempeh to similar sized chunks (about 1 inch cubes), so they cook evenly. Adapted from Super Natural Every Day, by Heidi Swanson.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings

INGREDIENTS
1 medium eggplant, cubed
2 cups cubed butternut squash
1 8-oz package tempeh, cubed
Zest of one orange
Juice of one orange
1 tsp salt
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup grade B maple syrup
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit.
2. Combine eggplant, butternut squash, and tempeh in a large mixing bowl. Combine orange zest and juice, salt, garlic, paprika, olive oil, and maple syrup in a smaller bowl, and whisk to combine. Pour about 2/3 of this sauce over the vegetable mixture, and toss to combine.
3. On a large, rimmed baking sheet, arrange the vegetable mixture in an even layer. Bake about 30 minutes, stir, and bake 15 to 30 minutes longer, until it begins to turn golden brown.
4. Place the roasted mixture into a large serving dish, drizzle with the remaining sauce, and top with the cilantro and feta cheese. Serve family-style. Enjoy!

Meatless Mondays: Weeknight Calzones

 You don't have to order delivery or settle for frozen to have great food on a weeknight. With a small amount of forethought and a bit of preparation, you can make weeknight dinners that are as good as delivery, arrive on the table quicker, and are better for your health.

These calzones require a bit of advanced planning, because they use frozen pizza dough. I suggest preparing a few batches of our favorite pizza dough, freezing them in individual rounds (each recipe yields two dough rounds, or two pizzas), so you can thaw them for weeknight use. With the dough already prepared, these take about 30 minutes to get on the table. 

Calzones are great because they are so easily and endlessly customizable. Each one can have totally different fillings, making it a great choice for people with different preferences. They're also a great way to use up leftovers, when you have a quarter of a bell pepper, a handful of mushrooms, two bites of spinach, and no idea what to do with it. Here I propose a veggie version of the hearty handpie, but meats are certainly a common filling option as well. Feel free to experiment!

I used parsley from our windowsill garden in these. It tastes much stronger than the parsley from the store (which usually tastes like almost nothing...), so a little went a long way. 

As I have made them, these are vegetarian (cheese being decidedly un-vegan). There is a moderate amount of cheese in the filling; if you like very cheesy things, add some extra mozzarella on top of the veggies before sealing up the calzone.

Weeknight Calzones
These are easy to customize, and each individual calzone can have different fillings. Use any vegetables or meats you like. 
Yield: 4 individual sized calzones

INGREDIENTS
1/2 recipe whole wheat pizza dough (or one pizza's worth of dough of your choice)
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup shredded asiago or parmesan cheese
a tablespoon or two of chopped fresh herbs (parsley, basil, oregano, etc.)
Veggies of choice for filling, or:
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 cup sliced spinach leaves
Pizza sauce, to serve

DIRECTIONS
1. Thaw the pizza dough if frozen. (You can do this in the microwave, at 50% power, in 30 second increments until the dough is about room temperature.)
2. Place a pizza stone on a rack at the center of the oven. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
3. Combine ricotta, mozzarella, asiago or parmesan cheeses and fresh herbs in a bowl and stir to combine.
4. Divide dough into 4 portions. Working with one portion at a time, roll out the dough into a roughly circular shape. (If your dough is sticking too much, lightly flour your work surface. I usually don't find this necessary.)
5. Spread 1/4 of the cheese mixture onto one half of the dough round (leaving a border, as pictured), and add desired toppings (but make sure you don't add so many you can't close the calzone!). Fold the un-topped half of the dough over the toppings and pinch the edges together tightly.
6. Poke some holes in the top of the calzone with a fork (so steam can escape).
7. Place the calzones on the pizza stone (or use a baking sheet) and bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. 
8. Remove from oven, let cool slightly, and serve with pizza sauce.

Don't forget to check out the Meatless Mondays page for more great vegetarian and vegan meal ideas!

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