Peanut Sesame Noodles

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

-Ayn Rand

These noodles are one of my favorite things to put in my mouth. I love it for dinner. It's easy and flexible.You can use any vegetables you like, more than the recipe calls for if you want to pack those veggies into your diet, or I've even made it with no vegetables. Just noodles with peanut sauce, oh yeah. Hot or cold, still hearty, filling, satisfying and really tasty.  It's Vegan too!

mise en place

 A cinch this recipe is. A perfect weeknight dinner. To complete this dish it takes only as long as it does to cook pasta.

everything cooking together makes putting this together a snap

Peanut Sesame Noodles


Ingredients

Serves 4

For the Noodles
 1 1 lb package (454 g) spaghetti- I used Dreamfields, use what you like
2 cups (322 g) sugar snap peas
2 cups (322 g) small broccoli florets
2 red, yellow or orange bell peppers-remove the seeds then thinly slice-I used one yellow and one red this time
2 large onions, halved and thinly sliced
salt for pasta water

For the Sauce

1/2 cup (90g) creamy peanut butter-I used natural pb
2 tablespoons sugar-if you use pb with sugar you may want to omit this
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
5 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons sesame oil
5 garlic cloves, minced
a pinch or up to 1 tsp red pepper flakes, depending on how spicy you want it
salt, to taste

For Topping

chopped or halved peanuts

Directions


Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti. 3 minutes before it's done, add all of the vegetables to the pot of pasta. Cook for 3 minutes, then drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water.
 Meanwhile, in a large bowl, stir together all of the sauce ingredients breaking up the peanut butter, then whisk the sauce till smooth. Add about 1/2 cup reserved pasta water to the sauce to thin. Add vegetables and pasta to the bowl and toss to coat. Add a little more pasta water if you think it needs more moisture.

Top each individual servings with halved or chopped peanuts, if desired.