Thai Style Yellow Curry Noodle Soup; Garlic Spinach Pasta

I am glad to see I am not the only one who has had some trouble blogging lately! I hope you are having a fabulous time in the windy city. These are a few things I have made recently in an attempt to use up some of the greens that I have received through my CSA. Some weeks it is a daunting task to try to get through so much produce with a small family but I HATE to throw it out. Sadly, it does happen sometimes :-(


Thai Style Yellow Curry Soup
This was an attempt to use up a head of baby bok choy since I heard that it is extremely nutritious. My inspiration came from Thai-Inspired Veggie and Rice Soup which always looks so good to me! I absolutley love yellow curries so I adapted this recipe to make a yellow curry soup. I had some yellow curry powder which looked vegan but the flavor was not strong enough (even for me!). All the simmer sauces seemed to contain fish sauce. Maybe someone knows how to make it without the fish?

Ingredients:
These are rough estimates since I sort of threw this together

• 1/2 white onion chopped
• small zucchini sliced
• 1/2 red bell pepper sliced into 1 ince pieces
• 1/2 head of baby bok choy chopped into bite sized pieces
• 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
• handful of shredded carrots
• 4 cups veggie broth (you will likely need to add more since it seemed to cook off quite a bit)
• 1 can diced tomatoes
  
• 1 can lite coconut milk
• 1 block of firm tofu cubed
• corn starch
• vegetable oil
• your favorite spices (basil, salt, red pepper, etc.)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• handful of soba noodles

Sautee garlic, onions and carrots in 1 TB vegetable oil. As it starts to become transluscent, add the other veggies and cook until they begin to soften slightly. Add tomatoes and broth along with any spices you want to add. I added about 4 TB yellow curry powder here but kept adding more as it cooked to intensify the curry flavor. Bring this to a boil. Once it boils, add soba noodles and boil unitl they are fully cooked (check package instructions) then lower soup to a simmer.

While the soup cooks, place tofu into a bag or container with enough corn starch to coat. Shake it up until tofu is completely coated. Heat a few TB oil in a pan and fry tofu cubes until they are browned.

Remove soup from the heat, add tofu and coconut milk. Enjoy!


Garlic Spinach Pasta
Again, had a whole lotta spinach and I am the only one who likes it. I thought the family might get into this but I was wrong. I thought it was great and I will likely make this again, just for myself. I got the basic recipe from a Whole Foods Cookbook sitting on my shelf but I adapted it.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound pasta (I used penne)
• 4 TB olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• Lots and lots of spinach chopped
• 2 TB fresh lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• nutritional yeast or vegan parmesan

Cook pasta as directed. Drain and set aside. Heat olive oil in a large sautee pan over low heat. Add garlic and cook until it begins to carmelize. Raise heat to medium, add soinach and cook until wilted. Add lemon juice and cooked pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast or vegan parmesan. Yum!