Thursday, January 28, 2010

recipe favorites: peanut noodles

Thanks so much for the nice response to my giveaway, everyone! What nice comments and questions. I'll get back to you on the answers to your queries--that will be fun.

Continuing with my "recipe favorites" series (recipes to coax me out of my cooking rut) here is a yummy peanut noodles dish that is quick and tasty. Nutritious, too. Plus, it is super family friendly. Everyone likes this, even the little boys (maybe especially the little boys. I remember one round of Rainer's chemo when he wanted to eat tons of this). Faith and I have big plans to make this vegetarian by frying up some tofu cubes until they are nice and golden and subbing those in for the chicken. We've also contemplated increasing the amount of noodles (because we tend to get left at the end with just meat and vegetables). I've posted this before, but life is repetitive, right? And so are our dinners sometimes (which, when you think about it, is actually quite homey and comforting).

Peanut Noodles with Shredded Chicken and Vegetables

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
½ c. smooth natural peanut butter
2 T. reduced-sodium soy sauce
2 t. minced garlic
1 ½ t. chile-garlic sauce, or to taste
1 t. minced fresh ginger
8 ounces whole-wheat spaghetti
1 12-ounce bag fresh vegetable medley for stir-fry (broccoli, carrots, and snow peas) [or just buy some broccoli, snow peas and carrots and cut them up, which is what we did last time, although that pre-cut bag can be very handy . . .]

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil for cooking pasta.
2. Meanwhile, place chicken in a skillet or saucepan and add enough water to cover; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer gently until cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board. When cool enough to handle, shred into bite-size strips.
3. Whisk peanut butter, soy sauce, garlic, chile-garlic sauce and ginger in a large bowl.
4. Cook pasta in the boiling water until not quite tender, about 1 minute less than specified in the package directions. Add vegetables and cook until the pasta and vegetables are just tender, 1 minute more. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Rinse the pasta and vegetables with cool water to refresh. Stir the reserved cooking liquid into the peanut sauce; add the pasta, vegetables, and chicken; toss well to coat. Serve warm or chilled.

The giveaway is still open, until Sunday night, so feel free to enter (only once, of course;).

15 comments:

BellaBree said...

ah yum! it looks greand and will be giving this one a go - thanks! hey is it too late to be popped into the giveaway? i love giveaways...fine it its too late tho. blessings

Abi said...

this is one of our favorites too! but, i 'over did' it while i was pregnant with my second and haven't made it since, much to my husbands disappointment. perhaps we'll give it a go again.

Mary Beth said...

BellaBree--it's okay! Go ahead and enter the giveaway. I'm leaving it open through the weekend (until Sunday night). Good luck!

Jennifer said...

This is one of our favourite meals, especially to take on our picnics in the summer. Yum.
theprairiegirl.com

Chris said...

we make this, too! we usually do this vegetarian, just by omitting the meat, although we used to do tofu cubes. you could serve some edamame alongside for some extra protein if you were concerned about that.

Its_Lily said...

well, yummm.....my preference would be to use tofu as well. Not that I don't like chicken, because I do, but I really like tofu in stir-fry.

Andrea said...

Yummy...I'm very much in a cooking rut too...I'll have to add this one to my "meal plan" for next week...if I get around to making a meal plan!

We Blog Artists said...

THEY SOUND SO GOOD...yum....I think our girls would like these.
Thanks for sharing, have a great weekend.

Kelli said...

hey, I am having a GNO movie night at my house tomorrow night and thought I would let you know that I am making your cookies. you know the ones with brown rice flour, carb chips, do you know the ones I am talking about. I love those cookies. Everyone is bring a healthy snack, no pigging out on chips and junk. I am going to try this new recipe, I love peanut butter.

Heather said...

That is a really yummy sounding recipe. I love peanuts and noodles together, and this sounds like a perfect weekday lunch for us. I have recently found some amazing gluten free pasta, and I think that the kids and I will try this out for the coming week. Thank you so much for sharing

Jessica said...

I made a similar dish last night for dinner--I love peanut noodles. I especially love dishes like this the next day!

jules said...

Oh my gosh. How yummy.

This is right up my alley. Thanks for the recipe.

Anonymous said...

I made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious, both my girls and the hubby liked it :o) I added grated cheese though.

Mikaela said...

We made this for dinner last night.....delicious! Thanks for sharing such a great healthy recipe.

Carrie said...

Made this for my BF reading the recipe off my Blackberry! (He has no printer and I have no internet - perhaps we're a good match!) Since it was just us grown-ups I made it a little spicy. It was great! Thanks!