4/16/09: Easy soba noodles with vegetables and thai peanut sauce

This one is easy mainly because I am using Thai Kitchen's Peanut Satay sauce as a base, but mixing a good peanut butter (should contain peanuts and nothing else) with a little sugar, coconut milk and sambal (chiles and garlic) will give you the same general feel. Definitely use fresh cilantro if you've got it with this recipe.

Get a couple quarts of water covered and ready to boil for the soba noodles.

Chop a head of broccoli, a couple carrots, 1/2-3/4 pound hard tofu, some mushrooms and some green onions. Stir fry vegetables for a few minutes, then add tofu and cover for 5-10 minutes, this steams the vegetables so they'll be tender, and uses the water from the tofu to do it.

Open the satay sauce and scoop into a large bowl. Rinse the jar the sauce came in with water and add to the sauce in the bowl. Add some sambal, or chopped red chiles and a couple cloves of garlic. If you have thai basil, chop some clean leaves and add them to the sauce. Turn the heat down on your vegetables and tofu (med-low) and add the sauce. Let simmer while the noodles cook.

Once your water is boiling, put the soba noodles (I cook 8 oz packages) in the water and boil for 8 minutes or until the noddles are soft but not mushy. Drain.

Grab some noodles (tongs or a pasta spoon work well for this) and dress with the sauce, and garnish with peanuts (or cashews) and fresh cilantro if you've got it. Enjoy!