I realize that a good number of the recipes I post are Asian influenced. Well, so too will be my future children since my husband is Japanese. HA! I'm hilarious. Anyway...

Miso soup is a very traditional Japanese soup, and cabbage is a staple vegetable. This meal makes a great light lunch and is ready in less than ten minutes. And if you have a few minutes the night before and want to prep a little, lunch will be ready in maybe two minutes. Not kidding, people. Also, if you're interested in the Is-it-good-for-me? question, then the answer is resounding YES. You've heard Dr. Oz talk about soybeans, right? Well, miso paste (the base of the soup) and tofu (way better than you think) are both soybean products. And cabbage? Well, ask your colon if cabbage is good for you. Convinced? Not yet?

Okay, it's tastes awesome! The soup is warm, a little sweet, and really comforting. The salad is crunchy, flavorful, and filling. Now do you want to hear about it? Fab.

Miso Soup and Cabbage Salad

a single serving but easily multiplied

• one spoonful of dashi miso paste *see note below
• a few cubes of silken tofu
• one chopped green onion
• a few leaves of Napa cabbage *see note below (my produce guy told me that if the store charges by the pound, you can pull off a few leaves and just pay for those)
• a drizzle of soy sauce
• a smaller drizzle of sesame oil
• black pepper and maybe a little salt

First, take the bowl you're going to put your soup in, fill it almost full with water, and add that water to a tiny saucepan. Bring that to a boil (which shouldn't take but a minute or so). While the water boils, cut the tofu into chunks, chop the green onion, and slice the cabbage leaves into small slivers.

Next, add a spoonful of the miso paste to the boiling water. This is what it looks like.

Gently stir it in with a whisk until it's mostly dissolved. It won't completely dissolve, and if you let it sit in the pan for awhile, the paste will start to settle a bit. I tell you that so you don't think you have weird miso paste and are going to die. (I have some dramatic readers.) Now pour the soup into your bowl, and add the tofu and green onion. Let that sit a minute while you finish the salad.

Just drizzle the cabbage with a little soy sauce, maybe a bit of sesame oil if you have it or even sesame seeds. Stir in a pinch of salt, a few good cracks of black pepper, and crunch away.

*A quick note about the ingredients.

When you look for miso paste, even if the package is mostly written in Japanese, look for dashi miso. Or dashi and soybean paste. Dashi basically makes the miso into a soup. Very convenient. I've tried lots of brands, and they've all tasted the same to me. So look for those two words together, and you'll be fine.

Napa cabbage is much more tender than regular cabbage you have in coleslaw on your hotdog. It's delicate and really tasty and quite pretty. I've never seen a grocery store that doesn't have it, so you shouldn't have any problem. Just know that if you use regular cabbage, it won't be as good. Don't say I didn't warn you.