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Cucumber Soba Salad, Any Way You Can

Japanese cold soba; cucumber and cold noodles, a smattering fresh mint and cilantro with sesame and crispy shallots for texture. Add peanuts or pepitas for more crunch? Fresh scallions instead of fried shallots? Other herbs? The other half of that avocado or a soft boiled egg? Sliced purple peppers from this week’s CSA? Yes! This summer salad welcomes improv. Get into it!

I like a 1:1 cucumber to noodle ratio, because it makes me feel better about the extra taco I had the night before, but you do you. Measuring thinly sliced cucumbers into a cup is extra, so I air on the side of “this looks like a good mix”, then add more dressing or veggies if it looks and tastes like I need it. Make a big batch of plain soba at the beginning of the week and chop fresh cukes into it every day for lunch, taking a different spin on the dressing each day. A spoonful of peanut butter if I have it, a little scoop of miso, the leftover juice from a pan of roasted veggies, a la Megan Winfrey– anything goes.

  • Soba noodles 
  • Juice from half a lime
  • A teaspoon of sesame oil
  • A tablespoon of olive or canola oil
  • Maybe: miso, peanut butter, almond butter – any flavorful paste can serve as a good foundation for your dressing
  • Honey
  • 1 cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
  • Sesame seeds
  • Fried shallot
  • A copious amount of cilantro & mint, chopped

Cook soba according to directions on the package, rinse in cold water, then place on a bed of ice cubes to chill while you make your dressing. Drain.

Stir together lime juice, sesame & salad oil and a quick squeeze of honey. Add salt or soy sauce to taste. Mix in all but a small handful of cucumbers in the dressing, then add the noodles. Taste them. Need more salt? More tang? Adjust as you need to with lime juice or rice vinegar and salt. Top your noodles with the rest of the cucumbers, then sprinkle with fried shallot and sesame seeds, and anything else that strikes your fancy. Bon Appetit!

Written for Johnson’s Backyard Farm in Austin, TX


Collard Wraps


Young raw collards are sweet and crunchy; hearty enough to hold a meal-full of fillings. My first collard wraps were inspired by Vietnamese spring rolls: noodles, sprouts, pork, shrimp, mint & cilantro, served with fish sauce. They were a hit, and once I realized collards are the perfect vessel for anything savory, stuffing a big leaf full of leftover _____ with a sprinkle of this and that has become a meal we crave regularly.

The wrap in this picture is made with leftover brown rice and shredded beef short rib from Dai Due, watermelon radish, mint, cilantro, sesame, scallion and hot sauce.

Prep your fillings (chop veggies, herbs) and set them up so they are easy to get to as you build your wrap, starting with grains and ending with crunch or hot sauce.

Use your leftovers! Get creative!

Pick one of each:

  • Grain or noodle: brown rice, quinoa, noodles, couscous, freekeh, barley
  • Protein: seitan, tofu, shrimp, chicken, beef, pork, poached/fried/scrambled egg, leftover sloppy joe filling, taco meat– you get the picture

Add a healthy sprinkle of any or all:

  • Mint, cilantro, basil, parsley, scallion, chives

Crunch:

  • Julienned or shredded fresh carrots, watermelon radish, jicama or sprouts  
  • Pickles
  • Nuts & seeds
  • Crispy shallots or garlic
  • Potato chips (yes)

Finishing with a few shakes of hot sauce is non-negotiable in this house, but to each their own.

Maybe this reminds you of a more virtuous Chipotle situation? Get into it!

Prep your collards:

Gently swish around whole collard leaves in a big bowl of water before letting them sit for about 10 minutes. Take the leaves out of the water and give them one more quick rinse under the faucet before patting them dry with a towel. (While this step may seem gratuitous, collards are inherently dirty, coming up from the earth the way they do. Nothing says “don’t do this again” like a mouthful of grit.)  Aim to leave as much of the leaf in tact as possible as you remove the thickest part of the spine from each one. If the leaves are small, place one on top of the other to cover the slit from removing the spine reinforce your wrap and make room for more filling. If your leaves are on the larger side, just use one for each wrap, starting with the slit side and rolling inward.

Starting with the grain or noodle, spoon it into the middle of the leaf, then add protein, herbs and crunch. Finish with hot sauce. Air on the conservative side as you build your wrap, especially the first go-round. Once you have tried it a few times, you will begin to see about how much a leaf can handle based on its size.

Written for Johnson’s Backyard Garden, Spring 2017. 

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