30 minute meal for last-minute entertaining

Welcome to the inaugural post of iz.face.food! Here you will find some observations and some tips on eating well and living well. Behold!

This past Wednesday, I had a last-minute urge to make dinner and invited a couple of lovely lady friends over to eat it with me. It was an uncharacteristically hot and sticky post-Labor Day evening, so I felt compelled to make something light and easy with minimal stove or oven usage since in the summer both the stove and the oven tend to turn my kitchen into a steamy place that brings to mind the 6th layer of hell.

I have been (as I tend to be every summer) on a cold noodle rampage of late. There is something completely satisfying to me about a giant bowl of chilled noodles, and it's probably one of the easiest and fastest meals to prepare. For Wednesday's dinner, I decided to try to recreate a delicious soba noodle dish that once tickled my fancy at a yoga retreat in Maine, made by a wonderful natural foods chef named Ilia Regini.

Sesame soba noodles with sweet potatoes, swiss chard, and shitake mushrooms

This took maybe 15 minutes tops to prepare:

1. Boil noodles then rinse with cold water when they have reached a nice al dente texture -- any noodle will do, but soba's robust and nutty flavor works nicely, not to mention its plethora of buckwheat-based health benefits and gluten-free appeal
2. Cook and chop up some yams or sweet potatoes -- I boiled two sweet potatoes for approximately 4 servings. I imagine grilled or baked would be pretty delicious too
3. Slice up and boil a handful or two shitake mushrooms -- I always keep some dried shitakes (you can get them at any Asian grocery store), and just soak them before I cook them. Fresh shitake would serve an equal if not greater purpose.
4. Thinly slice some Swiss chard -- I think any leafy/crunch greens should work well here. Try kale perhaps? I used half of a head of chard for 4 servings.
5. Toss all of the above in a big bowl and dress it with sesame oil (I am partial to the Kadoya brand, as my family has been using it for as long as I can remember) and salt.
6. Top the noodles with a generous shaking of white sesame seeds, as well as finely chopped scallions. Provide Sriracha/hot sauce/and hot peppers as options for those who are hot-inclined.

Tofu liang ban

I decided to complement the noodles with a "liang ban" tofu dish. Liang ban literally translates into "cool mix"in Chinese, and essentially is any chilled appetizer dish in Chinese cuisine. I have never met a liang ban that I have not loved truly, madly and deeply. This is also one of my favorite things to eat when it's hot out, but one of the ingredients (guess which one!) may not be for the faint of heart. 5 minutes tops to prepare:

1. Take a block of silken tofu (firm is fine as well, but I prefer silken)
2. De-shell one or two 1000-year eggs (or, rather, preserved duck eggs, a fine Chinese delicacy if you will)
3. Mix together and dress with sesame oil and salt to taste
4. Top with scallions and cilantro

Tomato and raw corn salad

This was a slight diversion from the Asian/sesame flavored theme of the evening, I needed a good excuse to use some tomatoes from my garden. I've been eating a lot of this salad lately. 5-10 minutes tops:

1. Halve lengthwise about a pint of cherry or grape tomatoes
2. Cut corn straight from one cob (no need to cook, though you can if you want!)
3. Add a small handful of very dry and sharp cheddar cheese, either in chunks and/or shaved
4. Toss in some chopped basil (I used mint on a slightly different variation of this salad recently, and that was also very good)
5. Dress with good olive oil and coarse or flakey sea salt

And finally, I blanched some string beans and just dressed it simply with lemon juice. For dessert we chomped on some extra stinky bleu cheese and the the leftover cheddar, very delicious olive oil and rosemary crackers, dates and nuts, all drizzled with honey, nectar of the gods.

In the end, my guests and I were happily fed and riding off the nutrient-induced high from all those natural foods and whatnot, plus also maybe the wine. Summertime baby, and the healthy living is so easy, peasy!