I am in LOVE with cold peanut noodles, but they always have a ton of peanut butter and sesame oil in the sauce which is incredibly caloric, and noodles aren’t exactly low cal either. My muffin top is big enough already so if I want to eat these I feel I have to make them a slightly different way, wherein the noodles are augmented by lots of colorful vegetables and the caloric parts of the sauce are cut down a bit. After much experimentation, this is the happy medium I came up with!

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A few weeks ago I posted about this Banana Caramel Upside Down Cake. I made it again recently, but instead of bananas I upside downed pears sliced on a mandoline, put some orange zest in the caramel, and used whole wheat pastry flour instead of white flour.

Divine! Although I did dump it out and realize it wasn’t done yet, so I had to re-upside-down it, cook it some more, then re-un-upside-down it. It worked surprisingly well in the end although there was a period of severe swearing that involved liquid hot caramel magma all over the kitchen and my pants, but the cake looked good after all that so no big deal in the end.

Ah, that elusive concept known as “healthy lunch.” Despite my best intentions I find that in the middle of the day it’s hard for me to resist the charms of foods like pizza with ranch dressing, giant burritos, or 9 pounds of hummus and falafel with 17 slices of pita. The other day I took a little time to make a healthy, flavorful, simple noodle bowl with whole wheat fettucine and a whole lot of hot sauce. Not only did I feel physically energetic and alive for the rest of the day, but also smugly virtuous. Win-win!

Spicy Thai Noodle Bowl for One

Ingredients:

• 4 oz fresh whole wheat fettucine
• ½ tsp vegetable oil
• ¼ cup chopped white, yellow, or red onion
• 1 Tblsp torn cilantro leaves
• ~10 cracked coriander seeds
• 1 pack liquid chicken broth concentrate or 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• juice from 1 small lime
• 1 scallion, finely chopped
• sambal oelek or sriracha to taste

Method:

• Cook fettucine in salted boiling water until tender. Drain and reserve about 2 Tblsp pasta water.
• Meanwhile, heat oil in a small sauté pan. Add onion, cilantro, and coriander seeds and sauté until soft and fragrant, and onion just starts to brown.
• Add broth and coconut milk, plus a large pinch of salt and about 3-4 grinds of pepper, and reduce over medium high heat until thick and creamy.
• Add fettucine and reserved pasta water to pan and cook over medium high heat until sauce coats the noodles, about 3-5 minutes.
• Turn off heat and stir in lime juice and scallions.
• Pour into bowl and top with sambal oelek or sriracha to taste. If you put the amount shown here you will be in for some serious heat!
• This recipe can easily be made vegetarian by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth.