I am a sincere believer in choices. There is no wrong food, there are ways to make it right. I remember when I was a child and my staple comfort meal was noodles, my mother would constantly frown upon this, however, she found a way to sneak in so much nutrition into my bowl of “maida” or “all purpose flour”. Seasonal vegetables would paint my bowl of inexpensive masala noodles and we would both win our little victories. Here is where I think I got it from my mama makes the most sense for me. Ever since my first stint where I had a little bit of control over menus started, I started sneaking in nutritious, seasonal vegetables to unsuspecting diners.
Lets talk a little bit more about noodles, shall we?
Who invented noodles? Italians, Arabs, Indians and the Chinese have all claimed to be the first to have chucked shapes of dough into boiling water.
Noodles of many shapes and lengths have been a part of global cuisines for at least 2,000 years, when but scientists found a 4,000-year-old noodle in China a few years back, it pretty much gave China the win.
Now noodles take many forms and are made from a wide variety of grains like millet, wheat, and rice. They are thrown into soups, fried in woks, or coated with olive oil, tomato sauce, or cheese. They are tossed with beans or vegetables or leftover meats to make a quick meal. Noodles are a blank canvas for infinite flavor combinations.
So how do you make a bowl of noodles more sustainable? Whats a good choice?
Here are a few ways you can change something as basic as noodles in your favour.
- Noodles take very well to leftovers, hell, I once made noodles with left over lentils and coconut milk with veggies where I blitzed the lentils and served it with a pan seared broccoli. Here is an image of the same.
2. Buy your produce from local farmers. Our food system is so vulnerable and its SO MASSIVE. We constantly think that our role will not be significant enough. This is not true, as long as we buy and consume food, we become solid actors in fixing the food system. This is one of the easiest ways you can do this.
3. Now you can buy noodles made from lesser known or ancient grains such as millets. These hardy crops are essential for good soil health!
4. Cold noodles take very well to preserves, have fermented excess produce? Toss it with the noods, season and serve for a quick, tasty and delicious meal.
5. Noodles are a great carrier of most vegetables, this is your opportunity to use different vegetables and promote biodiversity in your own bowl. Try using greens in season, such as malabar spinach, kolmi shaak, amaranth, mustard etc
6. Carrot tops, radish tops and even sweet potato leaves make for a great toss up with noodles. Be a zero waste hero and use all parts of your produce!
Recipe coming tomorrow! I hope you enjoyed reading this 🙂
Pandoodle 