Nourishing an Occupation 2: Sesame Noodles

Are you cooking for an Occupation? I'm looking for guest bloggers to write about their experiences of the Occupy movement and their food. Please contact me here (note: this link will take you to another website)

In this episode of Nourishing an Occupation, I show you how to feed 34 people a delicious, nutritious vegan meal for about $14. The occupiers at Occupy Poughkeepsie, along with visitors and hungry kids from the neighborhood all dug in and enjoyed these Sesame noodles.

With this dish, I started by making a sauce. In a large sauce pan, I heated a bit of oil and added several tablespoons each minced garlic and ginger. After about a minute, I added about 1.5 cup of smooth peanut butter, 1/2 cup of water, 1/3 cups of soy sauce, 1/4 cup vinegar and an extremely generous squirt of Sriracha sauce and sesame oil and stirred it well so it would melt. I tasted this and adjusted the ingredients, adding a bit more of this or that until I had a sauce that was nutty, a bit tart, a bit salty, and with a bite of heat. I let it warm and simmer on the stove.

I filled my largest soup pot 2/3 full with water to boil and cooked 3 lbs of linguini. Cooking that much pasta at once is tricky because if your pot isn't big enough it will stick together. If you don't have a giant pot, cook in 2 or 3 batches. As soon as the pasta was al dente, I drained it and immediately rinsed it well with cold water.

While the sauce was simmering and the pasta cooking, I chopped up a large napa cabbage, 3 sweet red peppers, and a bunch of arugula and put them raw, into a large foil serving dish. I chopped a bunch of green onions and put half of them in with the other veggies. I chopped up a bunch of cilantro and set that aside with the remaining green onions for a topping.

I cut up 2 lbs of firm tofu into small cubes and stirred them into the peanut sauce, then let the sauce cool a bit.

I put the pasta into the big foil dish with the vegetables, and using my clean hands, mixed everything together. Then I poured the cooled sauce over everything and mixed it through thoroughly. I topped the dish with chopped green onions, cilantro and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds.

This was a big hit with the occupiers and the neighborhood kids who stopped by the park couldn't get enough.

Sweet Potato Ginger soup w/ Peanut

I woke up early this morning to make today's soup to take to Bulls Head Meeting and it was -3F outside. While I was cooking a red-shouldered hawk was perched outside the window and the ice on the trees across the Hudson river was tinged pink in the morning sun. Ice covered the river completely until an ice breaker came through later in the day.

As soon as the soup was done, I ate some of it steaming hot for breakfast. It was savory and sweet. The aroma is bright with ginger and I garnished my bowl with some lemon zest, crispy fried onions, and chopped roasted peanuts. When it's this cold, soup is my favorite thing to eat. This is the third soup I've made this week!

I started by peeling and mincing about 3 Tbs of fresh ginger and peeling and dicing a medium-sized onion. I heated a little olive oil in the bottom of my soup pot and sauteed them until the onions were translucent. Then I added 2 cups of apple juice and let everything simmer while I prepared the sweet potatoes.


I peeled and cut into chunks a whole bunch of sweet potatoes. I lost count, but I think it was about 6 big ones. I rinsed them and added them to the pot with enough water to cover liberally. I let them simmer until tender.

While simmering, I seasoned the soup with spices. I'm guessing at the quantities here, because I didn't measure anything, but tasted it as I went along: 1.5 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp nutmeg, .5 tsp cloves, 1 tsp allspice, 2 tsp black pepper, .5 tsp vanilla extract, salt to taste.

When the sweet potatoes were tender, I ran upstairs & borrowed my landlady's immersion blender. I blended the soup until it was nice and smooth and then stirred in about 3 Tbs creamy peanut butter. I wanted the peanut butter to add a little richness and flavor but not overpower the ginger and spices, so I added a little at a time and tasted until I got it right. I finished the soup with a generous squeeze of lemon juice.