Vietnamese-Inspired Noodles

We enjoyed another terrific noodle dish for dinner the other night, this time inspired by the flavors of Vietnam. First, I assembled the ingredients: cooked linguine, shredded carrot, steamed broccoli, green onions, cilantro, peanuts, and tofu (you can use tempeh or seitan, if you prefer). I then made a marinade for tofu consisting of soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, hoisin, chile oil, and crushed red pepper flakes for some heat.

It was super-quick to prepare and very flavorful. Like most simple noodle stir-fries, you can easily adapt this recipe (I based it on Vietnamese Noodles with Tempeh and Peanuts recipe in Vegan Fire and Spice) to use whatever veggies and other ingredients you have on hand and tweak the flavors of the marinade or sauce to suit your taste. Here’s the recipe:

Vietnamese-Inspired Noodles

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons hot chili oil
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 (16-ounce) package extra-firm tofu, diced
1 tablespoon canola or other neutral vegetable oil
1 carrot, shredded
4 scallions (green onions), minced
3 cups steamed broccoli florets
8 ounces cooked rice noodles or linguine
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
1/2 cup crushed dry-roasted peanuts

In a medium bowl, combine the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, hoisin sauce, chili oil, and red pepper flakes. Add the tofu and toss to coat. Set aside.
Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add the carrots and scallions and stir-fry for 1 minute.
Drain the tofu, reserving the marinade. Add the tofu to the skillet and stir-fry for 5 minutes. Add the broccoli, noodles, and the reserved marinade and stir-fry to heat through. Add the cilantro and peanuts, tossing gently to combine. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Check out my other posts at Robin’s Vegan Planet blog

Fun with Leftovers

We had out-of-town company over the long weekend, so I had been cooking up a storm. Afterwards, I discovered my refrigerator filled with little containers of leftovers from the meals we enjoyed. There wasn’t enough of anything to “heat and eat,” but enough to provide lots of starting points to create several new meals. Here are some examples:

I had just enough leftover dressing and other ingredients to recreate Sunday night’s Caesar salad (the sprinkles are dulse flakes):

The vegetables from a leftover Roasted Vegetable Tower (see March 31, 2008 post) were transformed into roasted vegetable fajitas:

A few cups of leftover rotini were tossed with what was left of a vegetable tian and topped with panko crumbs for a yummy casserole:

Here’s a rice pilaf made with cremini mushrooms and fresh thyme:

I combined leftover cooked rice noodles that didn’t make it into a soup with some stray veggies for this noodle stir-fry:

Did you notice that there were no leftover desserts?

Check out my other posts at Robin’s Vegan Planet blog