1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon ginger puree
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon sugar
1 scallion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
8 ounces rice stick noodles
1 cup Napa cabbage or bok choy, shredded
2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded

1. Whisk together vinegar, tahini, soy sauce, oils, ginger, garlic, cayenne, sugar, scallion and red chili flakes and set
2. ide.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the noodles until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold water to prevent
4. rther cooking.
5. Combine noodles, cabbage and carrots and toss with prepared dressing. Refrigerate before serving.

Makes 6 servings

1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon red curry paste
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 pound pork tenderloin, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
8 rice paper wrappers
2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded
water

1. Combine garlic, curry paste, water, sugar, fish sauce and lime juice in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook until
2. gar dissolves, then set aside to cool. Marinate pork overnight in the prepared sauce once cooled.
3. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the pork until cooked through.
4. Soak rice paper wrappers until soft. Roll up with a portion of the pork and shredded carrots. Serve with your favorite
5. pping sauce.

Makes 4 servings

This is what I made for dinner tonight, Red Curry Spring Rolls and Asian Cold Noodle Salad. I more or less just ate the pork guts (that is, the guts from the
spring rolls, not actual pork guts) and made a huge pot of Edamame. I sloppily photographed
this whole mess before retiring to the couch.

The spring rolls weren't bad, they were just the kind of roll that required frying to be good. Some spring rolls can get by with that fresh, rice papery texture, but to me, they just have to be packed with crisp vegetables. Of course that would be my fault for not piling on the carrots and cabbage, or for not frying them, but I feel really lazy lately. The flavor of the pork, albeit spicy, is really pronounced. A nice hot Thai style dish that I gladly ate as a pork chop.

The cold noodle salad did absolutely nothing for me. The flavor of the dressing was unpleasantly potent until added to the
noodles, where it almost got lost. I'm undecided whether or not this was a good thing, so I wasn't particularly fond of it.
Perhaps this is one of those days where my taste buds are working against me. If nothing else, I got to use up (waste) the
rest of the Napa cabbage. I do like the idea of using tahini as a basis for Asian sauces, which prominently feature sesame
oil, since I've previously only considered tahini to be used for things like Hummus. Perhaps had I combined the noodles into the wrap this would have had a better payoff.