Over the last few months EG and I have adopted the mantra of Meat Free Monday, which is not only good for the environment (..and probably our bowels!) yada yada yada, but has also led us down a rather intresting culinary path as we put more thought into our food and its’ preparation. We have cracked the spines of a few ol’ dusty recipe books, we have ravaged the recipe index over at where’s the beef, and we have been eating around the globe; Japanese, Mexican, South East Asian, Indian, and Chinese to name just a few.
Anyway, I thought I’d start sharing some of our vegetarian dishes in the hope that it may provide some inspiration.
Now my dish is not quite up to the food styling of Heidi over at 101 Cookbooks, but this is my adaption of her wonderful seasonal Japanese inspired dish, Walnut Miso Noodles.
I pretty much followed the recipe verbatim, although I did use some organic buckwheat soba as my preferred noodle. I also couldn’t find rainbow swish chard anywhere, so ended up using the stalks of baby beetroot, which I think was totally inspired. It added a mellow sweetness to the dish.
For an extra hit of protein, I also pan fried some firm tofu in olive oil, which I had dredged lightly in rice flour. I chopped it into rough cubes and served on the side.
As Heidi mentioned, there is quite a bit of walnut “dressing” left over, so next time I would probably make a half quantity for serving two people (unless you want to eat it on top of your vegetables for the next few days). But this is a winner of a dish, and one I’ll be adding to the repertoire, whether it be Meat Free Monday or not.
New blog post: Meat Free Monday: Walnut Miso Soba with Pan Fried Tofu http://bit.ly/Q9lO4
The dish looks very organic! Glad that you are adopting a healthier lifestyle.
Nice one! 101 Cookbooks is one of my favourite sources of cooking inspiration.
What a great idea! Especially when we eat too much over the weekend. And I like this recipe. Simple and yummy.
Hey Cruxie Faye – yes, it was a rather “healthy” dish. But if healthy tastes like this, I’m doing it more often!!
Hiya Cindy – thanks for the kick up the bum to post these Meat Free Monday dishes
Hi Penny – actually, it is really nice to have a day of wholesome food after a “big” weekend. It almost balances it out
When I first saw the picture before reading the post, my first instinct was: THIS IS A HEIDI SWANSON DISH!
Looks gorgeous – I’ve made variations of her sobas before and love it!
vegetarian meals on mondays sounds like a very good idea..:)
yummmm and heads up rainbow chard is usually easily found at ripe and the other organic stall at the prahran markets, it’s got lovely multi coloured stems and it’s yummy to boot…it does sell out really quickly though so hit up the markets early or ask ripe to put some aside
oh yum, this looks fantastic, especially with the mountainous tofu cubes! YUM!
Hey fuckoinc – I can usually find it at the Vic Market (which is my local), but I was unfortunately there late in the day and they’d all sold out. But thanks for the tip on Prahran! I love it just fried up with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, with a twist of lemon, right at the end. Yum!
Hey Maria – uh huh, I loooove tofu, especially pan fried so it’s a little crispy on the outside.
I like the idea of “Meat Free Monday”. looks so delicious!