Summer Food: Roasted Eggplant and Zucchini with Fresh Tomatoes, and Tomato Sauce

On some days it's just too hot to eat something that is above body temperature. Today is one of these days.
So I decided to go with tons of veggies that could in the end be eaten hot or cold.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

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Simple and tasty, this sauce goes well with spring rolls, on sandwiches, or barbecued goods.

Ingredients:

• 2 red bell peppers
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 7 tablespoons of rice vinegar
• 13 tablespoons of raw cane sugar
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon of tapioca starch
• 200ml of water
• optional: sambal oelek (if you like your sweet and sour sauce hot!)

Thai Pasta Salad

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Mondays are always a bit of a challenge: I always prepare a lunch for work for my colleague and myself... but I want to vary what I bring. So I keep my eyes open for new ideas and suggestions. Today, the Vegan Food Nerd came to my rescue. Their dish inspired me to pick up some of the basic ingredients they used and to come up with something new myself. :)

This is not actually a Thai recipe. But the nice noodles, coconut milk, and red Thai curry paste made me call it that! :D

Ingredients for 6 generous portions:

• 400g of rice noodles (the type that looks like fettuccine, about 4mm, ca. 1/6 in)
• 300g of soy sprouts
• 3 bell peppers (red, yellow, green)
• 1 large zucchini
• 250g of snowpeas
• 1l of coconut milk
• some oil (for example sunflower)
• 2 tablespoons of red Thai curry paste - if you like it hotter, use more (double check the ingredients! Curry pastes are not always vegan/vegetarian!)
• some soy sauce
• some salt
• 2 limes
• 100g of (unsalted) peanuts 
• 400g of tofu (it's the squishy type which I buy at the Asian supermarket, not the firm stuff)

You will also need: A big pot, a deep-fryer. If you don't have a deep-fryer, I suppose you can also fry the tofu in a pan, but it won't be quite as nice.

Oven-baked Pasta Paella

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Another Tuesday, another Tuesday lunch! I really wanted to do something new, so I went through a cooking magazine I get every other month. Made some changes and everything turned out to be great! 

Ingredients for 4 large or 6 normal servings:

• 250g of green beans (I used frozen beans)
• 2 red bell peppers
• 1 yellow bell peppers
• 4 medium sized onions
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 jar of mild green chili peppers
• 100g of dried tomatoes (the type that comes in oil)
• 1 can of precooked chickpeas (ca. 200g)
• 300g farfalle pasta
• 2 cans of tomato chunks
• some olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of turmeric
• 2 tablespoons of paprika powder 
• 300ml of veggie stock
• some salt
• fresh parsley (I used half a pot of fresh parsley)
• 1 lemon (preferably organic!)