Peanut Veggie Stir Fry
I mentioned this a few times so far on the blog but my mom, Johanne, is a great cook! When I lived at home, I made no efforts whatsoever to learn to cook since my mom would do everything and my sister and I cleaned up afterwards. I had to learn to cook when I was ~18 and lived away from home to go to school. Believe me, it wasn’t pretty and I regretted not learning more when I lived at home. One of the most memorable of my food fail was when my sister called me and told me she was coming over to study with me and my cousin (also my roommate at the time) for the afternoon and she hadn’t had lunch so she was hungry and asked if I had something for her to eat. I whip up quite the meal by cooking a piece of frozen salmon, serving this with a blob of mustard and some baby carrots (cold). I remember vividly how gross it looks but that’s what you get when you call me on a school day and give me only 30 minutes warning. Thankfully, seven years of practice have made me a much better cook. But after all these years, there is one more thing I still struggle with and it’s sauces. For some reason, they are just one thing I can make without a recipe but I’m working on this and this was the main reason I made this stir-fry.
Poor Jeff had to answer my million questions about “is this enough of this?”, “what should I add now?”, “how does it taste?”, “oh no, it’s too thick what do I do?”. Thankfully everything turned out delicious.
I chose this particular combination of veggies simply because they were all on sale last week at the grocery store and again, it was a great combination. In an effort to have a few meatless meals a week, I used tofu instead of beef or chicken. The tofu was marinated overnight but if you don’t have the luxury of leaving it marinating for this long, at least 30 minutes of marinating will do. The softness of the tofu mixed with the crunchiness of the veggies and the creamy peanut sauce matches perfectly.
- 4
- 10 minutes
- 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 500 g extra firm tofu
- 180 g (1/2 package) buckwheat noodles
- 1 sweet onion chopped
- 4 baby bok choy, green and whites separated, chopped
- 1 cup of brocoli, chopped
- 10 asparagus spears, chopped
- Red pepper flakes
- Salt + Pepper
- Canola Oil
- Peanuts for topping (optional) Marinade
- 1 tbsp canola oil
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- ~ 1/2 to 1 tbsp brown sugar Sauce
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- ~ 2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
- ~1.5 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp rice vinegar
- Water to adjust consistency
- Pinch of red pepper flakes
Directions
- Place the tofu block between two paper towels and press it between the counter top and another heavy objects (a cast-iron pan or a stack of book should do). Leave it for 20-30 minutes.
- Cut the tofu in about 1 in cubes, mix all the ingredients for the marinade together with the tofu and leave it in the fridge overnight or for at least 30 minutes.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the buckwheat noodle according to the directions on the package.
- In a large skillet, heat up the canola oil. You want the pan and the oil to be very hot. Add the onions and garlic and cook for ~4 minutes. Set the onions and garlic aside.
- Add more oil to the pan (only if necessary), add the tofu and cook until it starts browning (~ 4 minutes).
- Add the asparagus and the broccoli. Cook and stir for ~ 5-6 minutes.
- Add the white part of the bok choy and cook for an extra 1-2 minutes.
- Add the leafy part of the bok choy and cook until wilted.
- Mix all the ingredients for the sauce together and adjust to the desired consistency with water.
- Mix together the noodles, veggies, tofu and sauce. Top with peanuts (optional).
- Enjoy!
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