Gluten-Free, Vegan Asian Noodle Joy

With our big move coming up, I decided to take advantage of the holiday to make a large batch of lunch bowls for the rest of the week and next. Either we were out of brown rice or it's been packed, so I went with a veggie noodle dish, and kinda winged it using what was left in the pantry and fridge. The end result was quite pleasing.

Here's the recipe, which makes 5 servings:

• 1 whole package of 100% buckwheat soba noodles, 12 oz. (Eden Foods makes a brand of organic, gluten-free soba noodle. You'll need about 1 & 1/2 packages for this recipe if making 5 servings, or just use one package and include fried tofu or extra veggies to pad it out)
• 2-3 "trunks" of broccoli stems (I decapitate the flower heads and steam them or eat them raw separately--Bobzilla refuses to eat stems, so this is a great way to sneak in insoluble fiber)
• 1/2 bag of baby carrots
• 1/2 head red cabbage
• 1/2 head white cabbage
• 1 medium white onion
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1-2 TB cock sauce, or more depending on how hot you like it
• 2 TB of low-sodium, wheat-free tamari (San-J is an excellent choice)
• 1/4 cup organic peanut butter (Giant Eagle's "Nature's Basket" is the one I used)
• 1 TB canola oil
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1 TB ginger paste

Take all of the vegetables and shred them. Cabbage is easy. Just cut lengthwise on the cutting board. For the carrots & broccoli stems, I run them through the food processor, sideways so you get longish shreds. Otherwise, just cut them into thin matchstick-sized pieces. Now, don't freak out by the butt-load size of veggies. They will cook down and fit with everything.

While cooking the other ingredients, start boiling water in a large pasta pot, with a little salt, and cook the entire package of noodles (usually about 4-5 minutes), drain noodles and rinse with cold water. Have noodles and pasta pot on standby for the finishing stage.

In a large dutch oven or wok, add oil and heat over medium-high heat until hot. Sautee the cabbage and onion for about 3 minutes or so. Add the broccoli and carrots and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the garlic at the end...garlic can brown easily and tastes like caca when over fried.

Then add all of the sauces, peanut butter and ginger paste to the vegetable mixture and stir over low heat until it gets saucy. You may need to add more rice vinegar, or even a little water to thin out.

Put the noodles back in the pasta pot. Add the veggie-sauce mixture and stir until well-mixed. From this batch, I was able to divide it up into 5 reusable freezer containers, weighing about 11.25 ounces each, with a little leftover for a snack. Just pop the containers in the freezer and take out to reheat as needed.

Here's the nutritional breakdown, which I calculated after adding up all of the serving size nutritional information found either on the package labels or surfing the internet for the produce, adjusting for the actual amounts actually used, and then dividing by 5:

Calories = 389
Protein = 15.4 grams

Fiber = 11 grams (finding fiber info on the broccoli stems was iffy, so I conservatively estimate it at 3 grams)
Carbs = 63.5 grams
Sodium = 780 mg (Eeek! That's a third of the daily allowance...even the low sodium soy sauce is still pretty high.)

I'd take a picture, but that means crawling over boxes to get to the camera. Fuhget it.

This also makes a great protein-packed, fiber-rich dinner, just invite over a couple of friends and break out the warm sake or Sang Som cocktails.

Hope everyone had a peaceful and fun holiday weekend. I know I did. The scale will tell all this Wednesday.