Tuna and Some Simple Sides

I'm going to give up buying fresh tuna for home cooking. Even when it's gorgeous, as this slab was, it's never as fresh tasting or perfectly textured as I hope. So it's not worth the expense, even just twice a year. I'll eat it in restaurants, where it will be better prepared and more carefully sourced.

But aside from the disappointing tuna, this was a delicious meal. I cooked soba noodles and tossed them with a super-quick peanut sauce I invented on the spot. We were going out and I didn't want to breathe garlic or green onions at anyone, so I just mixed a few tablespoons of chunky natural peanut butter with small amounts of soy sauce, sriracha, rice vinegar, and a dash of sugar, then thinned the mixture with some hot water. I tossed that with the cooked and rinsed soba noodles and some cilantro and served it at room temperature.

The green beans I boiled until they were tender, then tossed with lemon zest, dried lavender, tiny snipped pieces of candied ginger, olive oil, salt and pepper. This was an experiment based on an amazing lavender-lemon coffeecake I tried last year at Macrina, a bakery in Seattle. It worked. I will make them again.

Spicy Peanut Noodles with Raw Vegetables

Recently I bought a big chunk of tuna and grilled it. With it we had rice noodles with a sauce from Nina Simonds' Asian Noodles book. I added red pepper, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, and julienned carrots to the noodles.

Here's the sauce, which she calls Chinese Peanut Dressing. Sure, it has Chinese ingredients, but it can be used in a lot of ways, Chinese and not -- basically anytime you need a peanut sauce that isn't coconut-milk-based.

Combine in a food processor:

- a chunk of peeled ginger, enough to yield a few tablespoons minced
- 2-5 cloves garlic (recipe calls for 8, and I love garlic, but even 6 was too much)
- 1 teaspoon hot chile sauce (like Sriracha) or more
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 3.5 tablespoons sugar (less if you use scary sweetened hydrogenated peanut butter like Jif, but I know you would never do that)
- 3.5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce or Chinese black vinegar (I've never used the latter)
- 3 tablespoons sesame oil
- 5 tablespoons or more water or chicken broth

Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew

You could say this is the meal that got Cooking Habit started, although we never posted it here. It was the first recipe I discovered and told you about, Mom, instead of the other way around...which is when we started to form the give-and-take that led to this site (though I still get most of my cooking ideas and knowledge from you).

The site is coming up on its one-year anniversary in five days, so this is appropriate.

I found the recipe in the 2000 Joy of Cooking. It looked tasty, except that it called for ground turkey or beef, and zucchini, both of which I omitted. It turned out to be delicious -- highly addictive, very warming, very filling. And here's where this story became part of family lore: I told you to try making it, but I forgot to mention what I'd left out. You came up with the exact same modifications, and you loved it, and then Russell made it and he loved it, and it became a family standard. I believe even Isaac, who might as well be a family member, identified the correct modifications independently of us.

It's basically a thick, rich stew made with garlic, ginger, assorted bell peppers and hot chiles, sweet potatoes, and peanut butter. I always serve it over couscous. It's the most satisfying completely vegan meal I've ever had.

I forgot to take a picture of it when I made it this week, so instead here is an old picture of the first table I ever ate it at, in one of my old apartments.

Here's the recipe with my/our modifications:

Saute in 1/4 cup oil until translucent:
-1-2 onions, chopped
-1-2 bell peppers, any color (I prefer red)
-1-2 fresh chiles, minced

Add and saute for a minute or two:
-4 cloves garlic
-1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

Add and saute for one minute:
-1 tablespoon chili powder
-1 teaspoon cumin, ground or whole
-1 teaspoon whole or crushed dried red pepper -- scale up or down depending on heat of other chiles used

Add:
-2 large or 3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut in 1-inch chunks
-1/3 cup tomato paste

Cover with water and simmer for 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, until sweet potatoes are sweet and soft. Stir 1 cup of the broth into a bowl with:
-1/2 to 3/4 cup peanut butter

Then stir the mixture into the large pot. Salt to taste. Serve over couscous.

I've actually tried it once with some ground beef, and I didn't like it at all. Let it remain vegan, zucchiniless, and perfect.