Asian-inspired cold pasta with crunchy raw vegetables

I was looking through recipes trying to find another hot weather dish when I came upon Mark Bittman’s Cold Sesame Noodles with Crunchy Vegetables in NY Times Cooking. Of course the recipe had me making a fancy sauce, using a ton of oil and tahini, and Asian noodles. What I did have on hand was a bottle of peanut sauce, a box of whole grain linguine, and a number of crunchy vegetables.

In the morning John cooked up 5 oz. of linguine, cooled it down, and kept it from sticking to itself with one teaspoon of sesame oil. The slicked up linguine went into the refrigerator to await dinner time. While he was busy with the pasta, I chopped up some scallions, red bell pepper, snow peas, and cucumber. (I peeled and de-seeded the cucumber then salted it so that excess water would drain off.) Shortly before dinner we took the pasta out to get it closer to room temperature and right before dinner stirred in 2 tablespoons of peanut sauce and the raw vegetables. A little sriracha gave it a nice spiciness and peanuts were added for extra crunch. Garnish with mint or cilantro.

This is a great hot weather dish to make ahead. Both you and your kitchen will stay cool!