Asian Noodles

Here are some noodles with Asian sauce I made for dinner last week. I didn't have any actual Asian noodles (such as soba noodles, which are whole wheat Japanese noodles. I actually made them one time as a high schooler in Japan, which was awesome). Anyhoo, I didn't have any Asian noodles, so I just used whole wheat spaghetti.

I made a homemade peanut sauce, loosely based on this recipe from Alton Brown. I also sauteed carrots, broccoli, onions, frozen snow peas, tempeh, tomatillos and harissa to add some spice.





I served my Asian noodles alongside some Trader Joe's Coconut Curry Chicken Stix. I mostly cooked them in the microwave, then crisped them up in the skillet. They are great; they taste nothing like coconut--just a sort-of Asian spice with chicken. I served them with, what else?, a Trader Joe's dipping sauce.

These Asian noodle bowls were oishi!


Cookie Monster does not like chopsticks; he's not that great with them. But I have a pair in our silverware drawer that I bought at Uwajimaya specifically for Asian meals. It makes it feel more authentic, even if it's really not.

My parents always used chopsticks (ohashi in Japanese) at home, and I was pretty prolific with them fairly young. My mom actually lived in Japan in the '60s--my grandpa was a civilian in the Navy but knew how to fix airplanes. He was a high-ranking official, which means he and Grandma and my mom got the all-star treatment while they were there. That's about all I know.

When I stayed with a host family in Japan and they gave me a fork, I asked them for some ohashi and impressed the hell out of them when I knew how to use them.