Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Tempeh & Portobello with Soba Noodles

Today's lunch features a dish that I just made up last night off the top of my head. I bought some Soba Noodles a few weeks ago because there was a recipe on a recipe testing site that I was wanting to try. Well, before I could make it the recipe got pulled because the author made it a second time and thought that something wasn't right. Dang it! So, I just put the Soba Noodles in the cabinet and figured that I would get around to using them someday. Well, last night when I was trying to figure out what I was gonna' bring for lunch today, I stumbled upon the last little bit of that Grilled Tempeh that I had in the freezer. A quick internet search for "TEMPEH AND SOBA" revealed several recipes using these two ingredients. I looked at a few of them and quickly discovered that I was missing this ingredient or missing that ingredient. So finally I just said WHATEVER and just started cooking to see what I would end up with.

I boiled some water and got the Soba Noodles cooking. I've never made these before, but they only take 4-5 minutes to cook. Then I just dumped them out into a strainer and ran some cold water over them. Now all I had to do was figure out what I was going to put on top of them. I looked in the fridge and saw half of an onion wrapped up in some plastic wrap so I chopped it up and started it cooking with a little bit of Canola Oil spray on medium heat. Then I threw in about 4 cloves of minced garlic and let the whole thing cook for about 10 minutes. I had one HUGE Portobello Mushroom cap left from my weekend raw food adventure, so I cubed it up and tossed it in along with the leftover tempeh. Then I just poured some Bragg's allover the whole mess and stirred it around until it was heated through.

I did a quick taste last night as I was packing the lunchbox and WOW! This stuff tastes like meat. Cooked Portobello Mushrooms never cease to amaze me. I packed the noodles and the tempeh separately so I could fit a decent amount into the lunchbox. When I eat lunch, I can just spoon a little bit of the stir-fry over onto the noodles and eat it. Eventually, there will be enough room in the noodle container to dump whatever stir-fry I have remaining into it. I've never eaten Soba Noodles before, so I am anxious to eat my lunch today and see if I like it. I KNOW that I like the Tempeh & Portobello Stir-Fry, and I haven't met a noodle yet that I didn't like, so the odds are good that I will enjoy this.

I just threw a couple of Sugar Snap Peas on top of my noodles there to make it look nice. They were on special this week at the store and I bought a bunch. I'm sure you'll see a container full of them in the lunchbox one day this week. They are so sweet and delicious. I don't steam them or anything. They are just so delicious raw. YUM!

I also brought along some more of the Blackberries that I stocked up on this weekend. I love Blackberries and I refuse to let any of them go bad and go to waste. And then, as if the berries weren't enough for dessert, I also brought along a couple of treats that I made this past weekend when I was so stirred up on the raw vegan thing. I just made this up from other recipes that I have read and made I guess what could best be described as Raw Fudgy Treats. All I did was take 1 cup of raisins and 1 cup of raw walnuts and put them into the food processor. Then you just run it until the whole mess turns into this dough-like consistency that you can mold & shape with your hands. Then I just rolled it up into little balls and rolled them around in some unsweetened coconut. I think a lot of raw desserts probably use the raisin & walnut combination because it really does taste like fudge.

So there's lunch for Tuesday. I'm looking forward to eating it. I did get my exercise in yesterday and it looks like I am going to get it in today as well, so everything is cool on the exercise front.

Thanks for reading my blog today and I'll see you on Wednesday!
SOBA NOODLESBLACKBERRIESTEMPEH & PORTOBELLO STIR FRYRAW FUDGY TREATSFORK & SPOON

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your lunch looks great today! I am a huge fan of soba noodles. They are quick and healthy. I have a great recipe for you to make since you have the noodles and some snap peas. Marinate some extra firm tofu in a water/soy sauce mix and then stir fry it in sesame oil until it get a little crispy. Once the tofu is done, toss it in a bowl with some cooked soba noodles, your snap peas, and some sliced red pepper and carrots if you like (these can all be raw), top with more soy sauce and some sesame seeds and you have a great lunch. It is excellent cold so no microwaves! Take a little extra soy sauce with you too since the noodles and tofu tend to soak up a lot. ENJOY!

Anonymous said...

All I had for lunch was a shake... It was a good shake, though. You're lunch sounds better.

You might like the Vegan Forums.

Tracy said...

Those fudgy things intrigue me....we're they actually that tasty? I'm considering whipping these up....

kennyboy said...

Thanks everybody. Those soba ideas sound yummy. I will DEFINITELY be cooking this again. In fact, I almost made it for dinner last night. That was one of the yummiest dishes that I have ever eaten. It was GOOD!

And yes tracy, believe it or not, it does taste good when you process raisins & walnuts together, almost fudgy. I let two omnivores try them and they both agreed that they were very very good.

In fact, you can make a raw "cake" out of the stuff by just processing 2 cups of raisins and 2 cups of walnuts until you get a nice smooth "dough" that you can mold into the shape of a little cake. Put it on a plate and shape it into that shape (it will ooze oil from the walnuts over time, but that's ok). Then, clean your food processor and then process a cup of dates with the juice of 1/2 a lemon or so, you might need to add more lemon juice to get it the right consistency, plus it helps if you soak your dates in water, but I never do that. That makes the icing which you spread on top of the "cake".

You wanna' talk about something that tastes good. It's so rich that you can only eat the tiniest little piece and then you're stuffed.

It's yummy. Just making little balls like this is a little easier though. And they taste just as good. If you weren't concerned with staying 100% raw, I guess you could probably add a little cocoa powder and/or cinnamon (well, I guess cinammon IS raw) to spice things up a little bit.

If you make them, I'd like to hear what you think about 'em.

:o)