Soba Noodles with Edamame, Carrots and Spinach

Lately it feels like this blog has been a rollercoaster of bacon, and chocolate, and bacon, and pasta, and bacon. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I will defend my right to eat bacon and pasta and chocolate with every fiber of my being. But from time to time I do like to throw some healthy stuff into the mix, just to keep everyone on their toes, including me. And when I saw this recipe on Mark Bittman’s fabulous Bitten blog a little while ago, I thought — this thing is so incredibly nutritious that one plate of it will probably balance out the entire last month’s worth of bacon.

Plus it sounded so delicious. I am a big fan of edamame, although I usually eat it in those liberally salted servings you get at sushi restaurants. So I was delighted to see it start appearing in the frozen food section of the supermarket in all its green and healthy glory. Soba noodles were a little trickier to find, but I tracked them down in the Asian section of the supermarket. They cook up in no time — 4-5 minutes tops. Fast-cooking pasta, right up my alley! Miso is the hardest part; it is in the refrigerated section of the store.

Anyway, once you assemble the ingredients it is about 10 minutes from start to finish. I modified the recipe slightly to drop the baby spinach in the water for the last 30 seconds or so — for those of you who want to try it Mark’s way, he mixed it up with the pasta once it was drained. It depends how “cooked” you like your spinach. I like mine cooked, baby.

So the next time you feel the urge for something supremely healthy and super-delicious, give this a try. We now return you to your regularly scheduled bacon-imbued programming.

Recipe adapted from Bitten