Soba Noodle Salad with Linn Thorstensson

In today’s fast paced society it can be so hard to feed ourselves well. Not only are you often strapped for time, you then need to make sure your meal fits the latest nutrition trend you are following hoping to become just that little bit healthier. And why is it that somehow so many people think eating healthy is synonymous with bland and boring? Or that if you are trying to lose weight somehow your tummy should be rumbling otherwise you must be doing something wrong?

What ever happen to the most fundamental thing we all have to do every day to simply stay alive? You know; eating. How and when did it become so utterly complicated to nourish our bodies? We believe returning back to basics is where it’s at.

Have you ever heard of just keeping it simple? Well lets do just that!

For Linn, it's not enough for her meals to just be nutritious they have to be tasty too! For any meal to taste good, you need the best of ingredients, the rest will follow. This type of meal is what Linn cooks on an ordinary weeknight, particularly if she's slightly short on time! All you need is a couple of pantry staples, a few fresh seasonable vegetables and you will have a nourishing dish in about 15 min. And it so just happens that this one is gluten free / dairy free / grain free / sugar free and vegan too!

Linn Thorstensson is a Swede living in Ireland. She works as a Nutritional Therapist specializing in helping people lose weight without dieting. Her nutritional services are offered both from the clinic in Cork and to worldwide clients via Skype.

When she is not in the kitchen experimenting with different ingredients, you will probably catch Linn cycling down a country road or hiking up an Irish mountain.

You can follow Linn's story through her instagram and website.

SOBA NOODLES IN A TAMARI-MISO DRESSING W/ SEASONABLE VEGETABLES

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 bundle of soba (buckwheat) noodles – There’s usually four in a pack

1 cup of washed & roughly chopped vegetables – anything goes. I’ve used broccoli & radishes in the past, here I have used French beans & baby carrots

Dressing:

2 tbsp. / 30 ml cold pressed rapeseed oil – if you have sesame oil it will work well too

1 tbsp. Tamari / 30 ml (wheat free soy sauce)

1 tsp miso paste

A pinch of cayenne pepper

1-2 tbsp. sesame seeds – as topping

Directions:

Start by cooking the noodles. Bring water to the boil in a sauce pan. Add your noodles. Reduce the heat to a less lively boil, this step is important for ending up with less gloopy noodles. Cook for 5 min, then drain and rinse in cold water and drain well.

Steam your veg while the noodles are cooking. Either in a separate pot or on top of your noodles in a steamer.

Make your life easy and save on washing up by making the dressing straight in your serving bowl. Add all the ingredients for your dressing into your bowl. Whisk it together with the back of a fork. Add in your warm noodles and toss until evenly coated by the dressing. Then add in your lightly steamed vegetables. Give the whole thing another toss. Sprinkle some sesame seeds over the lot for extra crunch. Serve. Simple as.

Note: You can also leave some of your vegetables raw if you like extra crunch. If you are feeding more people than just yourself then make the dressing separate in a bigger bowl and make the whole dish in that bowl before serving as individual portions. If meat is your thing, there is nothing stopping you from throwing some leftover cooked meat into the bowl. Go with the flow. The tamari-miso dressing was inspired by a recipe from Susan Jane White’s book The Extra Virgin Kitchen.