Rice Noodles with Vegetables in Curry Sauce

I knew that I was going to come home late Monday afternoon and prepared dinner as much as I could beforehand. Because my refrigerator is overflowing with vegetables (and the asparagus patch is producing, too), I decided to make a vegetarian dinner. Curried vegetables sounded nice, and there were quick-cooking rice noodles in the pantry, so I put together an Asian-inspired meal.

Before leaving in the morning, I made the sauce ahead of time and cut most of the vegetables. This is a really simple recipe, and although I used asparagus, broccoli, red bell pepper, carrots, zucchini, and onion, you could also use bean sprouts, cauliflower, green beans, and many other veggie varieties. The sauce contains light coconut milk and skim milk, to cut down on the saturated fat, but all light coconut milk may also be used. I add a little coconut extract almost at the end of the cooking time to pump up the coconut flavor more (adding it earlier in the process, however, allows the flavor to cook away).

All told, the entire meal took about 20 minutes to put together after I got home, and it was very good. I love cilantro, and my herb garden is overflowing with it, so I used a heavy hand with my serving. Jack doesn’t hate it, but he isn’t fond of it either, so the cilantro on his portion was eliminated (he “made up” for it by adding extra chopped peanuts). ;)

* Exported from MasterCook *

Rice Noodles with Vegetables in Curry Sauce

Recipe By: Vicci

Servings: 2

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method

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1/4 cup light coconut milk

1/3 cup skim milk

3/4 teaspoon red curry paste

1 teaspoon sweet curry powder

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 clove garlic -- crushed

5 ounces rice noodles -- wide linguine-type

2 teaspoons canola oil

18 ounces mixed vegetables -- fresh; any preferred combination; cut into 1/4" matchstick shapes or small pieces

1 small onion -- vertically sliced

1/4 teaspoon coconut extract

2 teaspoons fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons chopped peanuts

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro -- optional

Mix first 7 ingredients, coconut milk through garlic, in a small bowl. Set aside.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, stir in rice noodles, turn off heat, cover, and allow to sit for about 5 minutes or until the noodles have softened. Drain, rinse in cold water, and set aside until needed.

While the noodles cook, heat canola oil in a large saute pan or a wok. Stir-fry the vegetables (add the harder veggies such as carrots and asparagus first, stir fry for a couple of minutes, then add the softer vegetables such as snow peas, mushrooms, onion, etc.) until just tender. Stir the coconut extract and the lime juice into the sauce and add the sauce to the vegetable mixture. Bring to a boil, fold in the rice noodles.

Serve in bowls, sprinkle with peanuts and cilantro.

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Per serving: 504 Calories (kcal); 12g Total Fat; (20% calories from fat); 9g Protein; 93g Carbohydrate; 1mg Cholesterol; 784mg Sodium

Food Exchanges: 4 Grain(Starch); 1/2 Lean Meat; 4 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 15 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates