New Apartment Sesame Noodles

So as some of you know I just moved into a new and wonderful apartment and as a housewarming gift to myself and new room mates I decided to make a family favorite, Cold Sesame Noodles w/ asparagus and shrimp. The original recipe calls for chicken but I felt the shrimp was a little more spring appropriate. Anyway, here it goes.

INGREDIENTS:
8 oz. linguine
3 cloves minced garlic (I used 4)
1 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs brown sugar
6 Tbs Chunky Peanut Butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
6 Tbs Sesame oil
1 Tbs Hot Chili Oil
1 lb fresh shrimp
5 Tbs toasted sesame seeds
1 lb Asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 in. pieces
5 green onions, sliced thinly (use all of the bulb and 3 inches of green)
1 small cucumber, halved seeded and diced into 1 inch pieces

1. Boil the pasta until it reaches desired tenderness, then set aside to cool in a large flat serving dish.
2. Shell your shrimp and saute them for two minutes on each side, I added a little chili oil to the pan to give them a little extra spice. Then place in the serving dish with pasta to cool.
3. Toast your sesame seeds.
4. Blanch asparagus in a sauce pan of boiling water for 1 minute. Remove from heat, drain and rinse under cool water. Then add to the serving dish.
5. Combine garlic through soy sauce in a food processor and process for 1 min. Slowly add the sesame and chili oil while processing and continue till smooth. Stir in 4 Tbs sesame seeds.
6. Toss sauce with pasta, shrimp and asparagus.
7. Sprinkle with scallions, cucumber, and the remaining 1 Tbs. of sesame seeds and serve at room temperature. Serves 6.

I served this dish with some Ithaca Apricot Wheat Beer which was delicious, refreshing, and perfect for cooling the mouth from some of the spice of the chili oil. Miss you all, happy spring. Also come visit me in my new apartment :)