Cooking In Summer is Dumb: Send Noods

It's a heat wave. Ugh!
I love summer.  My skin is darker, my hair wavier and freckles are out in full force.  Summer also means that the oven is set to off an the stove is on for no more than 30 minutes.  

This is my go to dinner/work lunch. The noodles and the ginger scallion sauce as the base, is versatile.  Oh, you don't eat meat? Add Tofu.  Oh you eat meat? Add Spam.  It works well with what you have and what you feel like eating. You can eat it cold or warm.  All you need to do is boil water and you can hard cook an egg while you cook the noodles at the same time, because, you know, get two birds stoned at once.

Ginger Scallion Soba Noodles

I will eat all kinds of noods but for this recipe I love buckwheat soba.  It cooks in 5 minutes and it when cooked properly has a good grainy texture and a salty flavor.

Ginger Scallion Sauce

Need:
buckwheat soba noodles. I get it at the Japanese market.

Thumb of ginger- Grated

depending on the size, 1 or 2 sticks of scallion - thinly sliced

equal parts lightly flavored oil such as sunflower or grapeseed and soy sauce.  so if you make 3 servings of noodles, 1/4 of a cup each will be good. In my case, I used 3 tablespoons each.

cap full of sesame oil

1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar or to taste.  I like a little bit more that most.

pepper to taste

Combine them all in a bowl, mix it around and let it sit for 20 minutes.

Noodles

1 bundle of buckwheat soba 

boiling water

Usually I cook it for 5- 6 minutes. If you take it too long, it will be too mushy.  But test it.  Should have a bit of bite but no crunch.

Putting it together

Drain the noodles and rinse.  Plop them back in the pot you cooked them in. Give the sauce a mix and spoon over the noodles.  Toss for a minute. Add more sauce to your liking. The pot should still be a bit warm from the cooking that the noodles will absorb a bit of the sauce.  I used half of the sauce.  The rest is for lunch or dinner the next day.

Pro Tip:
Boil eggs when you start to boil the noodles.  They will usually be done when the noodles are done cooking

If you have hearty veg like chard or kale, I will chop them and put them in the strainer.  When the noodles are done, pour the hot water though the strainer and you have perfect lightly cooked veg.