Soba Noodles with Chicken Veggies and Caramelized Garlic Sauce

In keeping with my diet and with my theme of Spark Recipes, I decided to give this recipe a try. I found it while searching on the site for some recipe ideas. This dish reminds me of my Chinese Broccoli Beef Noodle recipe, except with a lot of other extra veggies and the use of soba noodles. Soba noodles is another type of Japanese noodles made of wheat or buckwheat.

The original recipe only yielded one serving, so I modified it to fit 2 meals each for both hubby and me (one for dinner, one for lunch). Feel free to play around with different types of vegetables for this dish. The original recipe used red cabbage, carrots and red bell peppers. I happened to use bok choy, zucchini, carrots and bell peppers. Although a flavorful dish, I think I'll stick with my go-to Chinese Broccoli Beef Noodle recipe. It was a much quicker recipe for me with less complicated ingredients. Because, where else can I use Tamari in a recipe? That will probably be my next goal. To find a use for Tamari.

8-10 cloves garlic, crushed
4 tsp. vegetable oil
4 tsp. sesame oil
4 Tbsp. Chinese cooking wine, or sake or dry sherry
4 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Tamari (dark soy sauce)
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz soba noodles
2 bulbs of baby bok choy
1/2 zucchini, sliced
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup chopped red onion
1 stalk green onion, chopped
2 cooked chicken breast, sliced
sesame seeds for garnish

1) Cook soba noodles according to package directions. Strain and rinse in cold water. Set aside.

2) Heat sesame and vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add garlic and cook until dark yellow, not brown (lower heat if necessary to prevent browning). Add sugar and stir. Add cooking wine, soy sauces, salt, and pepper to taste. Allow to cook until sauce slightly thickens and bubbles.

3) Add chicken and all vegetables. Coat all ingredients with the sauce. Cook until chicken is warm and vegetables are cooked to your liking. Toss noodles in the sauce until thoroughly coated and top with sesame seeds.