Poached Egg Soba

This recipe has been such a life saver to me this week.

I’ve started to do something I have wanted for so long. It’s small. It isn’t really all that big of a deal. Yet, after working a few too many years as a waitress, it feels pretty darn cool to go to work wearing what I want (no more referee t-shirt!), to pace my day around myself (not fussy people with low-blood-sugar), and to experience what that ordinary nine to five life is all about. Adulthood! Oh the things that excite you as you age.

Don’t get me wrong, I will always love restaurants. They sparked my love of cooking, taught me a lifetime’s worth of lessons about being humble, and developed a heart in me to see the worth and love in serving another human being. It has good roots. But many years later, the thank-less nature of it can just be too tiresome. Restaurant work is a place to start, a great place really.

I’ve wanted this ordinary type of work for a long time. No more late nights, no more restless mornings (since what else can you do but laundry while you wait to go to work at 3:30)– just a whole mess of ordinary grown up stability. For now!

So now that I’ve hopped the fence, I’ve noticed something I never knew before. My deepest sympathies go out to all of you who have navigated these waters for so long.

Coming home around 5 and having to start dinner is an awful lot of work.

You’ve already worked all day, you’re hungry, your mind is tired, and yet you have more tasks ahead. How have I never understood what a trial this is?

I’ve been writing recipes and sharing my cooking ideas on this site for almost a year now, and in all that time I’ve never actually understood how challenging it is to find the motivation to work on dinner after you’ve already devoted most of the day to work. It is tough! In times like these, it seems as though fast food options are the only thing on your side to make dinner happen. Not so, my friends.

I love a good Japanese dish. The flavors are so savory, yet light. Noodles can always be involved. A delicate, yet salty broth is usually accompanying. And any dish that can be finished by plopping a fresh, steamy egg on top is just what I had in mind.

Poached Egg Soba is my own version of Japanese comfort food, in honestly little more than 15 minutes. Even with my zombie-like “five o’clock” mind, I can still boil noodles and poach a pretty little egg. You can too. And once you’re slurping salty little buckwheat noodles off your chopsticks, it will have been well worth it.

Poached Egg Soba

• 1 package thin buckwheat soba noodles (10 oz bag will serve 4+ people)
• 4 fresh, farm-raised eggs
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach
• 3 Tbs sesame oil
• 1 cup vegetable broth (or dashi granules and water, if you have it)
• 3-4 Tbs soy sauce (I use Braggs Liquid Aminos)
• Dash red pepper flake
• Chopped green onions, for garnish

In a salted, boiling pot of water, drop your buckwheat noodles and cook according to package directions. Strain and set aside when just al dente. Pour your cooked soba noodles back into the pot they were poured from, and let the heat from the pot meld the flavors of the sesame oil, spinach, and soy sauce together. In another pot or high-sided cast iron, fill with 3-4 inches of water, and warm until just before boiling. Stir water into a whirlpool circular motion, and drop in your cracked egg. Let cook through until desired doneness is reached. I like a mostly firm white, and a completely soft yolk. place eggs on top of piled noodles, sprinkle with chopped green onion, and enjoy!

Pasta Salad

Culinary inspiration comes from many places.

I go to the grocery every couple of days, and unless Jake is with me, I spend at least two hours there. He’s all about accomplishing the mission. I’m all about overturning each nook and cranny of the place for my own fun. We become opposing forces.

The two hours I spend there are always about as much fun for me as browsing the Mall of America would be to a shop-aholic. Every little bag of bean sprouts has to be combed over, each apple or peach sniffed until the perfect sweetness is found, and every flavor of granola sampled (when possible.) I take my time and choose what I’m buying wisely because they are the future ingredients in all I’ll be eating that week, so it must be great. The time I invest in choosing the ingredients is the beginning of my scheming; just as the perfect head of cauliflower is found, and nestles itself in the bottom of my basket, the ways it can be prepared are rolling through my mind.

This slow time is important to the cooking process. We can’t simply buy the same foods week after week. If we move slowly about, passing boxes and barrels of produce, crates of eggs, slabs of butter, we can take the time to let our senses develop. Perfectly ripe apples must be gently squeezed and sniffed, for a firm feel and sweet scent. Avocados must have a buttery give when pressed. Eggs must be gently tapped for a firm shell, and rich color (or bought from a reliable chicken farmer.) Bread must have a firm crust, soft interior, and the deep scent of warm wheat. By only grabbing and pressing on you will miss these first steps in putting a meal together.

There are times when an off-beat ingredient is what sparks a recipe. At larger specialty groceries you’ll find rare oddities like albino eggplants or heirloom tomatoes– these foods beg to be bought and fooled with. If ever you stumble upon some ingredient you don’t know, do the polite thing. Get to know it. Buy a strange vegetable or herb, and learn about it by tasting it. Let a hearty looking loaf of rye be the inspiration for your meal.

This time I was struck hard by a beautiful bag of colorful conchiglie, or seashell pasta. The flours were tinted with carrots, beets, spinach, and red peppers. Their look had to be preserved, and so they had to become a warm pasta salad.

Pasta salad is an easy dish. It comes together with whatever leftovers you have lying about the fridge, especially cooked vegetables, a handful of herbs and cheese, and a light vinaigrette. With or without pasta, leftover veggies can still be dressed with vinaigrette, mixed with beans, and served as a warm salad. We should use the foods we have already cooked as an extension of one another, so that the act of cooking is ongoing, as hunger is ongoing. Prepare a large batch of this salad, and serve it cold the next day for a hearty lunch.

Pasta Salad

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups pasta, uncooked (small spoon friendly shapes)
• 4 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 1/4 cup green bell pepper, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, washed and sliced
• 1 ear sweet corn, chopped from the cob
• 1 15oz can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 large handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 large handful of parmesan cheese, freshly grated
• 1/3 cup italian vinaigrette (recipe below)

Directions: Boil pasta in well salted water, according to package directions. Drain, toss with a quick turn of olive oil, and set aside. Save pasta water, and blanch veggies in the salted water. (Blanch corn on the cob, then cut from cob after it cools. Don’t blanch green pepper, serve raw.) Toss the pasta, cheese, herbs, beans, and veggies together with the vinaigrette. Salt and pepper, if needed. Let the dish rest for as long as possible, a day even, to let the flavors marry. Serve warm or cold. Makes 4 or more servings.

Italian Vinaigrette

You will need:

• ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup white wine vinegar
• ½ tsp minced garlic
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• ½ tsp red pepper flake
• 1 Tbsp chopped parsley
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Mix well, let rest for flavors to develop.

Baked Pasta in Spinach Pesto

Lately my house has been very quiet.

While the peaceful trickle of rain and pitter-patter of kitty paws are sounds I love, my house is minus a very important human being this week, and its a strange transition for me.

Growing up my house was a lively place, always a sibling or parent home bustling about somewhere– faucets ran, stairs creaked, televisions hummed. We were quite a lively bunch, and try as we might, none of us were really ever able to speak with inside voices (Sorry Mom!). Every inch of the place was filled with the presence of other people, and I’ve really grown to appreciate how that feels. There is something unspeakably soothing about coming home and seeing the sweater or book of someone I love displaced around the room, as if I could be with them just by being among their things. At all times there were signs of vibrant life, and reminders that there were other beating hearts around to fend off loneliness. Big, loud, happy houses are great places to grow up.

Though I’m working hard to appreciate the silence lately, I am reminded of just how important it is to be among other people.

Friends and family sharpen one another, no matter how difficult it can be to put up with each other’s nuances. We are not creatures meant to be alone. And even though it may seem like a dream to have your own place, without all those crazies who make piles of laundry for you to wash or keep their televisions blaring till 2 am, the reality is less serene. You see, the idea is very reminiscent of one of my favorite childhood moves… Home Alone!

This house is so full of people it makes me sick. When I grow up and get married, I’m living alone. Did you hear me? I’m living alone! (Remember this? Don’t be like Kevin.)

Home Alone! This timeless and epic movie perfectly illustrates how we feel when sassy-ness creeps in and steals all our civility. Kevin finds out, after suffering the horrid torture that is a ‘I-can-hear-a-pin-drop-‘ silent home (and an untalented duo of robbers I suppose) that life is a lot less worth living when you don’t have those wonderful people around after all. The sweet cannot exist without the occasional bitter.

Cooking is just like all these things mentioned above, especially the part about needing community. Having mouths that constantly need fed can be cumbersome, I know– but just think about how cold and lonely your kitchen would be if those mouths weren’t around. And when they do come around, needy and famished, you have the great honor of doing something really nice for them, because you love them– and that’s baking them some spinach-y pasta.

This baked pasta dish was SO easy, and the sauce was a nothing but pure healthy. Whole wheat pasta gives you some hearty grains, and sliced carrots add even more veggie power. Jake would really love this dish; I will be looking forward to all the things that come with having him back from his travels– his hungry little stomach included.

Baked Pasta in Spinach Pesto

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups cooked whole wheat pasta
• 2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2 cups raw spinach
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup fresh basil
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1 Tbs parmesan cheese (plus some extra for sprinkling on top)
• 2 Tbs bread crumbs (omit for a healthier recipe. I indulged, what can I say.)

Directions: Boil pasta according to boxed directions (salt that water!). Boil carrots with the pasta to maximize pan usage. In a food processor or blender puree spinach, nuts, oil, herbs, and cheese.

Toss sauce with pasta and carrots, and pour into an oiled baking dish (or cast iron!). Top with a little bit of extra cheese, and breadcrumbs tossed in a dab of oil. (You can make/buy whole wheat bread crumbs– I wish I would have, but I just used the panko ones I had around the house.) Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.