college peanut noodles w/ veggies

I call this a college dinner because its quick, easy, and inexpensive. College is also code for lazy.

sorry for the lack of pictures, last night was a lazy one.

What You Need for this Low Cost, Low Maintenance Meal:

(disclaimer: if you are someone who never has pantry items, ie: pasta, peanut butter and soy sauce, this will not be low cost for you as you will need to buy all of those things. however, try and make it work with what you have at home in the form of whole grain starch and vegetable.)

1 serving, 4 oz whole wheat angel hair pasta (or more if you're feeding more people) 

(you can use regular bleached pasta but since this is a low budget meal I like to use the whole wheat  pasta as my protein component to avoid spending money on meat or beans)

A vegetable, or more.  (i told you this was college)

I used snap peas and orange bell pepper but use ANY frozen or fresh veggie you have in the house or that is on sale at the store. 

some soy sauce (min 1 T, max 1/8 cup)

some creamy peanut butter  (min 2 T max 1/8 cup) 

some rice wine vinegar or if you don't have that, use white wine vineger, or just use some citrus juice. a few tablespoons.

its approx 1.5 parts peanut butter, 1 part soy sauce, 1/4 part acid (vinegar or citrus). Just mix the stuff up and see how it tastes, if you don't like it or if its too thick or too thin just add different proportions of the ingredients until it's just right for you! 

Cook the pasta according to the box directions. DON'T FORGET TO SALT THE WATER!

while the water boils, whisk together the peanut butter, soy sauce, and vinegar. If you have sesame oil and siracha hot sauce that's a bonus! if not, don't fret, we're on a budget here. 

julienne, or very thinly slice up your veggies. 

In the last minute of cooking drop the veggies into the water with the pasta so that they blanch.

Strain pasta and veggies, combine with sauce!

I added some chopped garlic chives and some fresh basil to mine because I had it in the house and needed to use it up, if you don't have that, no worries amigo. 

I told you it was easy. and I promise it is delicious! And decently healthy so long as you don't abuse your peanut butter privileges :)