Sorta-Soba Bowls

I love my Rachael Ray cookbook, and that's where I found this recipe. My local grocery store didn't have some of the ingredients, so I substituted and modified to fit my family's tastes. It came out really well!

1 pound whole wheat spaghetti

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 medium onion, sliced into thin strips

1 cup julienned carrots

2 medium zucchini, sliced in half lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch-thick slices

8 oz. package fresh sliced mushrooms (or 2 cans pieces and stems)

1/2 head cabbage, cut into 1/2 inch slices or 1-inch squares

32 oz. box chicken broth

1 tablespoon ground coriander (a definite must)

1 teaspoon white pepper

1/2 teaspoon ginger

salt (check before serving - I never add enough salt and people complain)

soy sauce for serving (I use Kikkoman low-sodium with no MSG)

lemon or lime wedges for serving

chili-garlic sauce for serving (found in the Asian foods section)

OPTIONAL: cooked, shredded meat (turkey, chicken, pork, beef, whatever - we had some turkey that SuperDad had cooked on the BBQ grill that he added to his for lunch the next day)

First, start the water going for the noodles (4 quarts heavily salted water for 1 pound spaghetti noodles).

While the spaghetti noodles are cooking, place 2 tablespoons extra light olive oil in a large soup pot and turn on to medium-high heat. Cook the onion, garlic, carrots, and zucchini until the onions and zucchini start to get tender, about 5 minutes (more if you're like me and the pan wasn't hot enough). Add the mushrooms and cabbage and cook for another 5 minutes or until the mushrooms and cabbage start to look fully cooked. Add the chicken broth and seasonings and bring up to a boil (if you want to add more broth or water to make it more soupy, go ahead - one box was perfect for the amount of veggies I had - it just came to the top of the veggies in the pot). Simmer for about 5-10 minutes, depending how crisp you want the veggies to still be. Remove from heat. Your noodles should be pretty close to done by now. When they're done, drain and toss with olive oil and a little salt.

To serve, put noodles in individual bowls. Ladle the soup/veggies on top and serve with soy sauce and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. Two of my kids ate it this way with no problem. The Tiny Man would have rather eaten just plain noodles. SuperDad and I added a small amount of chili-garlic sauce to ours, and it added just the right amount of extra flavor and spice for us.

Side note: If your people require meat at every meal (like mine apparently do), then at this point, they'll start to fuss at you, and you'll have to go get the leftover turkey out of the fridge so they can satisfy their carnivorous side. I had mine vegetarian and it was still great.

For lunch the next day, I just added the leftover noodles to the leftover soup and veggies, added a couple of shakes of soy sauce and some lime juice and reheated. Big Brother, the Princess, and I all enjoyed it like this for lunch. The Tiny Man, however, had a PB&J.