Sesame-Peanut Noodles

My husband and I spend one night a week in a neighbouring town called Zhangzhou, because he has to teach a night class and then a morning class there. The university puts us up in the campus hotel. It's a bit of a hassle, but also a fun change of pace. Unfortunately, the meal options in the area consist of MSG greasebombs, so I've taken to packing us at least one meal. This week it was buckwheat noodles in a sesame-peanut sauce. It's a cold noodle dish, so keeps well for the journey.

You can use any other kind of noodle that will hold up well.

Sesame Peanut Noodles

1 large carrot

1 seedless cucumber (English or Chinese)

300g pkg buckwheat noodles

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup sesame oil

1/4 cup light soy sauce

2 tsp sugar (or more if you like it sweeter)

splash of vinegar

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp olive oil

tsp chili flakes

dash salt

dash black pepper

hot water for mixing

Prepare noodles according to package directions or until al dente.  Rinse and drain.  Meanwhile, chop carrot and cucumber into matchsticks.  Mix together rest of ingredients except for hot water to form sauce.  Toss noodles, veggies and sauce together, adding a bit of hot water one tablespoon at a time to help mix if noodles are too dry.  Chill and serve garnished with sesame seeds or chopped peanuts.

Plain Yogurt!

I've just discovered plain yogurt!!!  Ok, I know this doesn't sound like an amazing discovery, but I live in China, where it's next to impossible to find things like sour cream, whipping cream, pretty much any kind of cream except the canned variety.  And I'm not a fan of yogurt (especially since they only have the runny drinkable kind), so I had never really looked in the yogurt section.  Chinese are actually pretty big on yogurt...their dairy section pretty much consists of yogurt, a few cartons of milk, some processed cheese slices and something that looks like squares of cream cheese but tastes like...nothing I've ever really tasted before or wanted to.

But today I was making Tandoori chicken from a spice mix I bought in Malaysia (yes it's cheating, but it was MSG-free), and I thought I would check out the yogurt section just in case they did have some plain yogurt and voila!  There it was!  And it even had English on it!  "Plain"!!  Amazing!  So not only did I have yogurt for the chicken, but I even had some left over to throw together a cucumber salad (thinly sliced cucumber, a tablespoon of yogurt, a tablespoon of mayo, and a sprinkling each of veggie soup mix, cumin powder, black pepper and salt).  Hooray for yogurt!