Calcium! And a rather mediocre noodle salad...

My mom and I saw this recipe in the newspaper a while back and it looked pretty appetizing. I'd never tried to make soba noodles before, but this recipe for a cold soba noodle salad with red peppers, carrots and a sesame dressing sounded promising. Also, it called for basil, my absolute favorite summer ingredient. Sadly, I live in MI and thus just planted my basil and didn't want to start tearing off leaves quite yet, so I had to buy packaged grocery store basil. I also couldn't find soba noodles, but did find some whole-wheat Asian style spaghetti noodles. The noodles themselves were great; nice texture, more flavor than your average spaghetti noodle, etc. Unfortunately, the dressing recipe was rather disappointing. Alone, it tasted nice, but it needed a lot more punch once added to the noodles. Basically, the salad ended up tasting like red peppers and vinegar. Still, it wasn't inedible or even bad; just not memorable.

It does look pretty though, and more importantly it contains some calcium rich ingredients! Although I'm going to be about 15 minutes late with this blog posting, this recipe was intended for the Beautiful Bones event hosted by Food Blogga in honor of May being Osteoporosis Awareness Month. As my family has a history of osteoporosis, this event seemed an appropriate introduction for my blog to the food blogging community. So, here's the recipe for the Soba Noodle Salad including the calcium-rich ingredients: sesame, garlic and whole wheat flour.


Soba Noodle-Vegetable SaladFrom "The Food You Crave" by Ellie Krieger.

Salad:
4 ounces soba noodles or whole-wheat spaghetti
1 large shallot, very thinly sliced
1 large carrot, shredded
1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips
1/3 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
1/3 cup thinly sliced fresh mint
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

Dressing:
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon walnut or canola oil
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon finely grated lime zest
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce or 1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce
Salt to taste
12 large bibb or butter lettuce leaves

1. To make salad: Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil and cook the noodles according to the package directions. Drain and let cool.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the noodles with the shallot, carrot, bell pepper, basil, mint and cilantro.
3. To make dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the rice vinegar, sugar, walnut oil, sesame oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, lime zest, lime juice, fish sauce and salt.
4. Add dressing to the noodle salad and toss lightly to coat. To serve, scoop spoonfuls of the noodle salad into the lettuce leaves and eat out of hand. Makes 4 servings