Asian So So

So my Asian Extravaganza went okay. I'll chock it up to WAY to many dishes. Spring rolls, peanut sauce, Pad Thai, cole slaw, and cold peanut noodles. And I was trying to have a pretty deep conversation with a friend. AND I was trying to to ignore my son too much. It was a crazy night. I hit the ground running at 4:45, stopped to eat and chat without cooking at some point and got all the dishes done by 10:45. And I hardly left the kitchen (we didn't have anything to make a pallette for my son in the kitchen, so I had to put him down in his own room). Crazy! Here is how it went.

Peanut sauce: So, um, not what I was hankering for, but not so bad. Its hard for anything to measure up when I have a hankering for it. Nothing else will do.... so actually, on its own, not compared to my fav sauce at my fav pho place, pretty good.

Spring rolls: one of them was so flimsy and torn that i just demolished it and at the innards. Can't really mess up the taste of these guys, but it just never came together.... HOW do they roll them so tight without busting the wrapper?! I'll check it out on YouTube...

Pad Thai: Now this... This turned out very well. I roasted some chicken legs separately and added the picked off meat when all was cooked because I am just terrible at cooking meat in a pan like that. My fat fake wok performed very nicely. It might not be up to a professional's standards, but to this novice, everything was sizzlin just the way I needed, so it meets my standards! the noodles weren't overcooked, the sauce tasted like actual Pad Thai, veggie's were yum, egg was yum, it was yum. It was a little too sticky, so next time I'll remember to have some water at the ready to keep the sauce wet. Also, I didn't make sure I had equal portions of the ingredients for the sauce and I think it came out a little less sweet than I remembered. This was a little too tart for me, but I'll know next time when I measure them by weight. For a learning experience, I'd say this turned out VERY well. But that was my first sentence, sooooo...

Cole Slaw: shredded cabbage (1/2 a head) 2 parts apple cider vinegar, 5 parts olive oil to make about (1 & 1/2 cups of dressing or less) and then honey to taste. I used about 2-3 Tbs. Also, salt and pepper to taste. Let it wilt in the fridge overnight, YUM. Stupid Easy. Thanks Dad for this one! Oh, next time I'll add the black sesame seeds I picked up for our next dish....

Cold Peanut Noodles: I can't even remember where I picked up this recipe, but it flopped. Well, I flopped. I totally didn't follow the recipe, and I might try again and actually do that. I gave it to the husband for lunch and he threw it out... oops.. Something was just... wrong.. eh.

So, one huge night of experiments and MAN did I learn a lot. I mean a lot. Except I still don't know how to roll those stupid spring rolls... oh yeah, YouTube. Peace!