Sesame Noodles with Cucumber Cashew Salad

I can't remember the first time I discovered soba noodles, but once I did I kinda felt like I had won the food lottery. Soba noodles are made of buckwheat, and addition to being really, really tasty, they are actually pretty good for you, as far as pasta goes. And when you pair them with a scrumptious sauce and nestle a delicious cucumber cashew salad next to them...well, it's a good day when you can say you are having a super-delicious dinner and being virtuously healthy all at the same time. Right?

This quick cold noodle salad is another one from my week-long celebration of one of my new favorite cookbooks, STONEWALL KITCHEN FAVORITES, and if you haven't yet entered the giveaway for a signed copy of this fantastic book, click here. In the meantime, here's the scoop on this salad. The sauce is a speedy combo of garlic, ginger, scallions, tahini, chili paste, soy sauce and my personal favorite kitchen ingredient, peanut butter. You thin it down a little with some hot water from the cooking pasta, toss in some cilantro if you are a cilantro person, and that's it. The salad is a simple combo of chopped cucumber and cashews tossed with sesame oil and white vinegar with a little ground pepper.

All these exotic ingredients can usually be found in any decent supermarket. If you absolutely can't find soba noodles anywhere (and I promise you that Amazon will have them!), you can sub in linguine. You just won't get to feel as completely virtuous. All of this wonderfulness is fabulous on its own, and also the perfect accompaniment to grilled steak or chicken or fish.

Here's the delish recipe, and don't forget to enter the giveaway!

Sesame Noodles with Cucumber Cashew Salad, from Stonewall Kitchen Favorites

# minced garlic cloves
3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup tahini
2 teaspoons chili paste
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup minced cilantro
1 eight ounce package soba noodles (or linguine)
Sesame seeds for garnish

1 seedless cucumber, chopped
3/5 cup coarsely chopped cashews
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice or white wine vinegar
Fresh ground pepper

1. Bring large pot of lightly salted water to a boil.

2. In a large bowl, mix garlic, ginger and scallions. Mix in peanut butter and tahini. Add chili paste and soy sauce and stir well. Add 1/2 cup hot water from the pot and stir into sauce. Add cilantro.

3. Make salad by mixing cucumber, cashews, sesame oil and vinegar in a separate small bowl. Set aside.

4. Add noodles to boiling water and cook until just tender. Drain and run under cold water until cool. Drain again and toss with sauce until well-coated. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve with cucumber salad on the side.

Click here for printable recipe

Sesame Noodles and a Cookbook Contest!

First of all, for those of you eager to get to the contest, you might as well scroll right down to the middle of this post and look at the cover of the gorgeous new cookbook by Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman.

But before I get into the contest details, I would like to submit this post as Exhibit A in my ongoing quest to do absolutely everything that the Pioneer Woman tells me to do. For those of you who don't know who she is, the Pioneer Woman writes the blog that all of us cooks/photographers/foodbloggers/dog-lovers aspire to. If you haven't visited her website yet, you are missing OUT. Not that she needs any help from me -- you will probably go from here to there and then never come back again. But if you PROMISE to return, take a look at http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/. It is a sight to see.

Anyway, a little while back she put up a recipe for sesame noodles, and told us (and I quote), "Make them this weekend!"

And since I am her devoted slave, I did. Amazingly, I had everything in the house except for the hot chili oil, and so I called 1-800-MYMOTHER, who always has everything somewhere in her pantry. Of course she had chili oil, so my lunchtime that same day the Southern husband and I were sitting down to the Pioneer Woman's sesame noodles. Which were outstanding, as usual. We had them plain, but they would be terrific with some shredded chicken, and/or cucumber, carrots, shrimp, etc etc etc.

And if I haven't been enough of a Pioneer Woman groupie for one day, I also need to tell you about this new cookbook she has.

And you can read more about it at the link below...

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

And guess what??? I have not one, not two, but THREE copies to give away! The rules are simple: leave a comment on this post that gives me a suggestion for a recipe you would like me to make and photograph. In one week I will pick 3 incredibly lucky commenters at random to get a copy of THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKS. Which I already know will be one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. (For my peeps who subscribe on email -- click on the recipe title up top and it will take you to the web page where you can comment. I love you guys!!)

So back to the sesame noodles for a second...for all of you who have already seen this one on her site, I have road-tested it for you and it's perfect. Of course. And for the rest of you...just don't forget about me once you have seen her site. And last but not least, make sure you check the Pioneer Woman website for her book tour dates to see if she is coming to your town...if she does and you get to meet her, ask her for me how she manages to photograph Every Single Step of Every Single Recipe, and still have it come out perfectly Every Single Time?

Okay then...ready, set...comment!!

SESAME NOODLES, from www.thepioneerwoman.com

12 ounces linguine, cooked and drained
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 to 3 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon hot chile oil
4 to 5 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons hot water
3 to 4 green onions, sliced thin

1. Whisk all ingredients (except noodles and green onions) together in a bowl. Taste and adjust ingredients as needed.

2. Pour sauce over warm noodles and toss to coat.

3. Sprinkle with green onions and toss.

Click here for Printable Recipe

Cold Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Cucumbers

Cold sesame noodles is one of my favorite Asian dishes ever, and so I am always on the look-out for a new good recipe to try out. (which always then leads to a Recipe Shoot-Out, since then I have to go back and re-make all the ones that I already have, just to compare and contrast. Luckily I have a patient husband who doesn't mind eating variations on the same theme over and over and over, and a daughter who is happy to have Cheerios for dinner).

Anyway, I was therefore delighted to find this new recipe on Mark Bittman's fabulous blog, and take it out for a test drive with the leftover grilled chicken I had in my fridge. Overall I really liked it, and the cooperative Southern husband absolutely Loved it, with a Capital L. Which will not stop me from making the other version I already have in my binder, but if you don't already have a recipe for sesame noodles, this is a quick and easy one. I've included the link below, but I do have several pointers/suggestions/adjustments, because I just can't leave well enough alone!

1. This recipe calls for poached chicken, but I think it is SO much better with grilled chicken that has been shredded into bite-sized pieces.

2. I use the large shredder attachment on my food processor to deal with the cucumber. SO much easier and faster then shredding by hand, and better shreds. And we must have good shreds, you know.

3. Mix this thing up with your hands. It will absolutely come together the best way if you do this.

4. I garnished with sesame seeds instead of scallions, but I am not anti-scallion. The ones I had in the fridge were just looking a little dodgy. (don't you love being an improvisational cook?)

Aside from that I stuck very closely to this recipe (and feel free to ignore me and follow Mark's instructions to the letter, he does have a decent jump on me in terms of cooking expertise). And with that, here is the link:

Cold Sesame Noodles

Chilled Sesame Spinach

This is my favorite recipe so far in Summer 2009. (yes all you purists, I know it is not officially summer yet. But I consider it summer as soon as you can start eating dinner outside, so there. ) Anyway, this perfect little summer recipe starts at one of my favorite places in the world:

There it is, a-gleaming in the sun.

The apples!

The lemons! The limes! The tomatoes! Okay, snap out of it. We are here for spinach. This recipe calls for 2 pounds of spinach washed and trimmed. It may be a little more expensive but I promise you that it is worth every last penny to buy baby spinach. It doesn't have all the sand in it, and there are very few stems to trim. My Fairway (yes, it is MINE!) has baby spinach in a big bin so you can scoop out as much as you need. I like a lot of spinach. Don likes a lot of spinach. Emma likes exactly no spinach. Dixie would probably eat the plastic bin they store the spinach in.

This recipe takes exactly five minutes once you have all the ingredients out, and then I pop it in the fridge while we are making whatever goes with it. This time we grilled some chicken and sliced it thin, and by time that was all done the spinach was perfectly chilled.

CHILLED SESAME SPINACH

• Coarse salt
• 2 pounds spinach, washed and stems trimmed
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons naturally brewed soy sauce
• 1/1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons rice wine (rice wine? I used white wine. tasted just fine)
• 3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

1. Fill a large bowl with ice water, set aside.

2. Bring a large pot of water to boil, season with salt. Add spinach and cook until just wilted, about 30 seconds. Drain immediately in colander and plunge into ice water.

3. Let spinach cool completely, about 30 seconds, drain again. Using your hands, squeeze excess water out of spinach. When you think you are done squeezing, do it one more time. Spinach is absorbent stuff. Transfer to cutting board.

4. Coarsely chop spinach and place in medium bowl, set aside.

5. Meanwhile, whisk together oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar and wine. (I do this while the water is boiling). Add dressing and sesame seeds to the spinach, mix to combine.

6. Spinach may be refrigerated for up to 2 days. I, however, have trouble not eating it between mixing in the sesame seeds and putting it on the plate, that's how good it is. If you love spinach, that is.