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.

Basic Honey-Garlic BBQ Sauce

My husband bought a little charcoal grill at Carrefour along with a big box of Chinese charcoal. Here in China, having a backyard BBQ is pretty much unheard of, though you can go get your lamb-kabob fix at the local muslim style street BBQ. Anyway, we wanted to have a full-on American style BBQ, so we set up the grill on the balcony of our apartment. Unfortunately, the Chinese charcoal wouldn't light, and sent clouds of smoke blowing into the hallway, which led to our neighbours calling security. A camouflage-clad guard came and pounded on our door, but apparently found it pretty funny after he realized what was happening. Chris just pretended not to speak any Chinese.

After that fiasco we decided to try again, but on our friend's balcony this time. Heh heh. Well this time it worked, and we were able to BBQ a piece of steak and some chicken kabobs. I whipped up a batch of homemade BBQ sauce to go with, since BBQ sauce is hard to find here (I think you can get it at Metro). Feel free to adjust the ingredients to taste.

Honey-Garlic BBQ Sauce

1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp soy sauce
splash of vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
dash of chili powder
dash of black pepper
1 tbsp of olive oil

Cook the garlic in the oil until softened. Add remaining ingredients and simmer over low heat until thickened.

Pretty easy huh? And it tasted good too. We used this on the chicken kabobs and I used it again the other night to marinate and glaze some drumsticks which I baked in my little Chinese toaster oven (my substitute for a real oven). Yum!