Five-spice chickpea noodle bowl revisited plus other random edibles

Five-spice chickpea peanut noodle bowl.

In my last post — a review of Protein Ninja by Terry Hope Romero — I said I loved one of the recipes so much I was going to re-make it to bring as my contribution to a dinner at a friend's house. Well, I did just that on Saturday, and it was fantastic. I made a couple of changes to make it more of a salad than a bowl,  but basically it was the same. Instead of four to six ounces of long rice noodles, I used about 12 ounces of fusili, I added an extra half can of chickpeas, and possibly there was a bit more shredded cabbage. And I had way too much! After filling my large serving bowl about 1/2 full, I packed the rest away in the refrigerator to use for lunches and dinners!

Rather than wait until the last minute to make the salad, I prepared the components in the morning to be  assembled before leaving for the party at 4:30. While the chickpeas were roasting, I prepped the veggies, boiled water and cooked the noodles, and made the peanut sauce. I kept the parts separate until it was almost time to leave, then mixed all into a beautiful salad. Such a great dish!

On Sunday we took the ferry to Port Townsend to attend a lecture by Dr. Michael Klaper. I was inspired to try eating a little differently than usual, and I'll share the foods I've tried (amazingly delicious) in my next post, but I'd better post my saved random eats photos now, just in case Dr. Klaper has a lasting impact on my diet, and my photos no longer reflect my eating style. I suspect things will probably not change much, but you never know.



What you are looking at is my modern-day version of a gluten-free (or not) bannock, as might have been consumed during the 1700s in Scotland. (As an Outlander fan, I felt the need to make these one day.) My bannock, in this case, is filled with barbecued tempeh — not very 18th century Scottish, I know. The bannock recipe I concocted appeared on the blog, here. I received a letter from a reader not long ago saying she tried making the bannocks, and the recipe failed, so I immediately got to work making some. I tried the recipe twice, and it worked both times, but so many things can vary with baking ingredients, it's impossible to guarantee perfect results. I should ask my husband to make them, and watch to see if there's anything I can do to make the recipe better.



My husband made this, and after tasting one bite I said, "whoa, this is amazing!" Turns out he made ye'atakilt alicha from Teff Love by Kittee Berns. He tricked me by serving it with rice instead of injera. I had just read a blog post by Kittee and had been wishing for Ethiopian food, so it was perfect timing. If you don't own Teff Love, you should go buy it right now.



I do love my noodle bowls. This one has shredded red cabbage, cucumber, arugula, green onion, and microwaved extra firm tofu with Bragg's.



I'm getting pretty good at turning leftover stir-fries, stews, or whatever into burgers. These contained a lentil and rice dish (mostly rice and very dry lentils), leftover veggies (I think cauliflower and carrots), hemp seeds, garbanzo flour, herbs and spices, dried onion and garlic, and a bit of water and tomato for processing. Zip zip in the food processor, mold into patties and cook in a pan on the stove top or in the oven. They were great hot for lunch, and the leftover cold ones made delicious sandwiches to take on out ferry trip to Port Townsend. No recipe needed. Do you like to experiment and cook without recipes? Have you had a favorite success?



Last but not least, this is one of my typical breakfast bowls, with homemade yogurt, blueberries, o's, hemp seeds and raisins. And there's also a banana buried in there!

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1, 2, 3 eat

When you don't have enough time, energy or will to cook, what do you make? My husband and I like to cook, but sometimes we just don't feel like cooking, for one reason or another. Here's a little compilation of 'fast food' that may be found on our table on any given day.

The first is my favorite kind of fast food — leftovers. At the back of the plate are two leftover Ethiopian dishes from one of our favorite cookbooks, Teff Love by Kittee Berns. It was made the night before when we did feel like cooking. Come to think of it, it was actually from two nights before, and by the third day, we were out of injera, so the leftovers were paired with sautéed mushrooms and frozen broccoli.



Here's a tasty lunch bowl made from leftover lentils, potatoes and brussels sprouts. Thank heavens for leftovers.



A simple stir-fry can be a quick way to manage lunch or dinner. Tofu and shredded cabbage cook in a flash, and you can add your favorite seasonings — or just salt and pepper if you're really feeling lazy.



Here's another quick stir-fry variation — this time with tofu, mushrooms, bok choy and mung bean noodles. There was a bit of leftover sauce in the refrigerator from a recent, more ambitious dinner, and it made the perfect finishing touch to a fast and simple lunch.



If all else fails, there's always takeout. My plate is filled with tofu skin hot pot, Japanese rice noodles and brown rice from Bamboo Garden — a vegan Chinese restaurant in Seattle.