Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Butternut Squash Curry Soba Dinner

On Sunday, J and I went out for a drive and ended up in Scarborough. We'd always known Lois' Natural Marketplace was there, but for some reason we hardly ever go. It's in an area we don't frequent and so it's easy to forget - but boy, we won't forget it now!

Lois' has that distinct health food store smell - vitamins, herbs - I don't know what it is, but every health food store has that same smell. As we wondered the aisles we were dumbfounded but the number of vegan products - many of them products we have never seen at Whole Foods. We walked away with a large bag of Little Lad's Cashew & Date Granola, a small bag of Ener-G's gluten free sesame pretzels, King Soba Pumpkin, Ginger, & Rice Soba noodles, a vegan donut from Holy Donut (who knew they had vegan ones?!), local raw honey, and LizLovely Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies.

Today, winter decided to hang on and give us one last (maybe?) snow storm. So I decided to take the soba for a test drive and to utilize left over butternut squash from the soup we'd made the night before. The soba was good but not the best I've had. Certainly worth trying. It was a bit more sticky than the buckwheat soba I typically buy and the flavor (pumpkin & ginger) is very very faint and easily masked by spices and veggies. Nonetheless, dinner was tasty and you can try it out using King Soba or any brand of soba you'd like!


Butternut Squash Curry Soba Dinner
1.5 cups butternut squash, cubed
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 block of tofu, drained & pressed
1/2 yellow onion
1 package King Soba's Pumpkin, Ginger, & Rice Soba
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 tsp curry
1/2 tsp coriander
1 cup chopped broccoli
salt & pepper
1/2 to 1 jalapeño, diced
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 scallion/spring onion, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Toss butternut squash and carrots in a little olive or canola oil and bake 35-45 minutes, until veggies are tender when poked with a fork.

Cook the soba as instructed. It is important to wash it with cold water afterwards so that the noodles don't all stick together so don't skip this step!

Dry fry the tofu. Set aside.

In a skillet, cook onion in olive or canola oil. Once onion is translucent, add ginger, curry, cardamom, and salt and sauté for 1-2 minutes. Next add broccoli and jalapeño pepper. Add the butternut squash and carrots and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the coconut milk and bring to a simmer for several minutes. Finish by mixing in the soba and topping with scallion.

Serves 3-4



Invest in a tofu press - you will thank me.

I like to cut the tofu into 4ths (the long way) and then cut each quarter in half, and then in half again on the diagonal, forming little triangles. 

Dry frying is one of our favorite ways to prepare tofu. There's no added fat from olive oil and it makes the outside nice and crispy while the inside remains light and fluffy.


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