Soba-squash stir fry with tahini-soy sauce

Breakfast: Parfait with cooked apple pieces and honey

Lunch: Leftover curry – even better than last night!

Dinner: Soba-squash stir fry with tahini-soy sauce

Day-after meals are so good sometimes. It’s so time and cost efficient to cook a big batch of food and have it feed you for several times, so give it a go next time you’re making a curry, a pasta dish or chili.

Last week we had our housewarming party and my awesome friend Marcos brought me a wicked cookbook called The Everyday Vegan. Just reading through it made me hungry and I can’t believe it’s taken me a week to make something inspired by the recipes!

In Sydney we used to make stir fries with soba noodles and tahini sauce, and it was everyone’s favourite meal; light, full of flavour and so, so good for you. You were left feeling full and complete, with heaps of energy. Tahini is the stuff they put in hummus; it’s basically sesame seed paste and is a good source of both protein and iron, as well as calcium, which is good news for vegans.

This sauce, adapted from a recipe from The Everyday Vegan, is a variation on the tahini sauce that we used to make. The soy sauce changes the taste of the tahini completely. This was thrown together haphazardly and ending up being super quick to make, and so good that someone who had claimed not to be hungry ending up eating half my meal.

You’ll need:

(Feeds 2)

            Butternut squash, cut into small chunks

            2 medium tomatoes, chopped

            2 medium onions, chopped

            2 cloves garlic, crushed

            1 zucchini, halved and chopped

150g firm tofu, cut into cubes

            2 servings of soba noodles (they usually come tied in single servings)

            oil / sesame oil

For the sauce:

            1/2 cup tahini

            1/3 water (or more, to your desired consistency)

            juice of 1/2 lemon

            handful of fresh parsley, chopped

            2 tbsp soy sauce

            1 tbsp rice vinegar

            2 tsp honey

            a sprinkling of cayenne pepper

Method:

            Mix all the sauce ingredients together in a bowl and set aside

            Put the noodles in a pan filled with water, and bring to the boil

            Cook for a couple of minutes, just until they have gone soft, then quickly drain

            Fry the onion and garlic in the oil til they’re browning

            Throw in the squash and cook for 5 minutes until all pieces are soft

            Add the zucchini and tofu and cook for 3 more minutes

            Throw in the soba noodles and the tomatoes, and 2 tbsps of the tahini-soy sauce

Mix everything then serve up, with a good dollop of the sauce on top – leave the rest out for people to add more as they like!

           

It might seem odd to use tomato in this recipe, but actually tomatoes are a staple of most Thai stir fries and add a depth of flavour along with the usual root vegetables.

Soba noodles are a type of Japanese buckwheat noodle, and they’re medium-dark brown in colour. You can get them at all Asian grocery stores (usually for way cheaper than supermarkets) and they are a mainstay of our kitchen!