Quick & Easies: Super Soba Salad

Hello there! It's been so long, I hardly recognize you!

First, a quick garden update:

The first two seasons of square foot gardening have been a successful and educational adventure! I will post the full journey and lessons learned soon, but here are the highlights.

The garden produced an abundance of collards, kale, basil, and beets; all mine for the cooking! The okra, bell peppers, habenero, jalapeno, and eggplant are still going strong, but I've planted the fall garden in the empty spaces - more beets, carrots, collards, and kale (these are cool weather crops, good for early spring and fall), as well as spinach, daikon courtesy of my generous friend Amy, and my almost ready to harvest black eyed peas. I hope the collards catch up, because I can't have one without the other!

Some Summer highlights:

Kale - I've planted more in the Fall garden - it tastes even better when exposed to frost! It's used in the delicious recipe below, so I know I'll be using plenty of it!

I didn't get many Heirloom tomatoes, but every one was more delicious than the last and worth every ounce of patience. I have one left and debating on whether to let it ripen, or fry it still green. 

Habeneros are notoriously hot, and these puppies are much hotter than what you get in the store. I guess that long truck ride zaps some of the spice. I've got more of these than I know what to do with - 20 so far and counting!

One of my favorites, these okra are going to become gumbo soon enough!

Now, on to the Super Soba Salad! Nine easy ingredients, and with a little boiling water and whisking, in 15 minutes or less you've got a salad worth of a main course!

Chopsticks optional.

Let's make it!

Ingredients: This recipes makes a a salad for two, double the recipe for 
Dressing:
1 T honey
2 T rice vinegar
2 t low sodium soy sauce (or the regular stuff, or tamari, or Braggs, or... you get the idea!)








Salad:
2 bundles of Soba Noodles (These typically come preportioned 4 gently wrapped bundles to a bag. I use one bundle per serving.)
1 cu thinly shredded kale
1 cu thinly shredded red cabbage
1/2 cu shredded carrot (about 1 carrot worth)
1 scallion, sliced into thin rings
1 T toasted sesame seeds

Soba Note: Soba noodles are easy to find these days in the Asian section of just about any grocery store. I buy the organic ones from Whole Foods. Fiber rich, these noodles made from buckwheat are an excellent choice to satisfy that carb craving.

5 Quick & Easy Steps:
1. Boil water and cook the soba noodles. Most recipes tell you to "follow the package directions," but I've always found that the directions tell you to cook it for way too long. These noodles just need a good stir and then 2 or 3 minutes in the water and that's it! Drain and rinse under cold water.
2. Whisk together the 2 T rice vinegar, 2 T soy sauce, and 1 T honey in a large bowl. Add the kale, cabbage, carrots and toss with tongs.
3. Add the soba noodles to the cabbage dressing mix and toss to combine.
4. Top with sesame seeds and scallions.
5. Enjoy!

Note: Although modified, I must confess that I gained inspiration from a Whole Foods recipe in the store. And I am so glad I did!

Whole Wheat Buns

No kneading, no resting, no waiting? That's my kind of bun!

Step One: Gather Your Ingredients:
1 cu water (warmed to around 110°F) plus an additional 6 T water
1/3 cu canola oil (I've heard that you can substitute this with apple sauce, but I haven't tried it)
2 packages yeast
1/4 cu honey
2 T ground flax seed
1 t salt
3 & 1/4 cu whole wheat flour
1/4 cu vital wheat gluten
Sesame seeds or other desired toppings
Preheat your oven to 350°.

A Note About Vital Wheat Gluten

As you might be able to read from the picture, vital wheat gluten (which my family can't say without sounding like the Swedish Chef) makes dough doughier. Plus, it has 23 grams of protein per 1/4 cup and only 0.5 grams of fat. You can add it to just about any baked good, and I even used some in my black bean burgers that I served with these buns.

 Step Two: Awaken Your Yeast
Combine 1 cu warm water with 1/4 cu honey and 1/3 cu canola oil. Add two packages of yeast and whisk to combine. Let the concoction rest for 15 minutes. (After all, it's tired - it just woke up!)

Step Three: Make Your "Egg Replacer"
While yeast mixture rests, make your egg replacer. In a skillet over medium heat, whisk together 6 T water with 2 T ground flax seed for 2 or 3 minutes until the two ingredients bind together. Turn off heat and allow to cool slightly.

Step Four: Mix It, Roll It, Cut It, Bake It
Once 15 minutes is up, add 3  1/4 cu flour, 1 t salt, 1/4 cu vital wheat gluten, and the flax seed mixture to your yeast concoction. Stir just until dough forms. Roll out dough on a floured surface to almost 1 inch thick. Use the top of a round glass to cut out bun-sized rounds, keeping in mind that they will expand in all directions in the oven. Brush a little water onto the tops and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes, but check your buns after 8 minutes. If you over bake them, they will be too dry.  You can find the recipe for the black bean burgers here. Enjoy!

 

Oh, and I used my leftover dough to make butterfly rolls.

Honey Wheat Bagels

Discouraged by a lack of whole wheat everything bagels in the market, I decided to venture out to make my own. Turns out they are not all that time consuming, expensive, or difficult. Give yourself an hour and you'll be wondering why you haven't been making these all along.

On a personal note: It's been awhile since I've posted. It's been a busy couple of weeks for me as we've renovated the kitchen.

I've also planted some fall veggies - red cabbage and white cauliflower. So, expect my favorite recipes for those two in about 55 days!

Now, let's get to the bagels!

Step One: Gather Your Ingredients

Oh and if you want to make everything bagels, like I did, you'll need:

You could also use onion and garlic powder, but I prefer the real thing. So, dice 1/2 an onion (Vidalias are still in season) and cook in 1 t of olive oil until they look like this:

 Drain on a paper towel. I tried to put this on my bagels after the seasonings but had trouble getting it to stick. So, next time, I am going to simply mix the sauteed onions into my cream cheese! Yum!

Now, to the bagels!



Step Two: Bagel Dough

Mix together 2 cu of the whole wheat flour, the salt, and the dry yeast. Slowly add in the warm water and 3 T of the honey and mix well. Gradually add in the remaining flour. Note: my dough only needed an additional 2 cu - it should have a sticky texture but form into a single ball of dough.

Flour your hands and the surface you plan to knead on. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Form it into a ball and return it to the bowl:

Cover with a towel and let it rest for 10 minutes.

When the 10 minute nap is up, divide your dough into 12 equal parts. Shape each part into a ball and stick your finger in the middle to create the bagel shape.

Assemble your formed bagels on 2 sheet pans doctored with your favorite method of nonstickery (butter, nonstick spray, parchment paper, silicon, etc). Let the bagels sit, uncovered for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, start a large pot of water to boil.



Step Three: Broil, Boil, & Bake

After the 20 minute rest is up, turn on your broiler. Broil your bagels for 2 minutes on each side. You will need to do this for each sheet, so that they sit on the uppermost rack. Keep an eye on these, the second round may not need a full 2 minutes as the oven is quite hot by then. If they start to turn in color, they are ready to come out!

Post Broiler

Stir the last 1 T of honey into your now boiling water.Add enough bagels to the pot to cover the surface. Turn the heat down and simmer for 3 minutes. Flip the bagels over and simmer for 4 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 375˚ F.

Once done, return your bagels to the sheet pan. When they are just cool enough to touch, but still a little sticky, dip the tops of the bagels into the seasoning mixture:

I made 6 of my bagels everything and 6 plain honey whole wheat.

Bake at 375˚ F for 20 - 25 minutes until the tops are golden brown. You can put both sheet pans in the oven at once this time, but you may want to rotate and flip the pans 1/2 through.

While they don't have quite the chewiness of a lye-cooked bagel, they are still darn good. And you know what's in them! And while the initial investment of the ingredients (especially the seasonings if you don't have them) might be a bit more than the average bagel, per recipe they work out to about 23 cents a bagel!

The Everything Bagels were made for onion cream cheese and the honey whole wheat ones go great with Trader Joe's Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flaxseeds.

Make these but be warned - if you share, everyone will be asking you to make more!

Enjoy!