For the past two weeks we’ve been eating our way through a laundry basket of asparagus (picked with the kids at our CSA) using mostly French techniques and preparations. So it was a breath of fresh air to apply other flavors to the remaining three pounds of organic spears left in the fridge.

A scan of several cookbooks revealed intriguing soups and souffles, but I knew as soon as I cracked open Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone that I’d uncovered a gem in Sesame Noodles with Asparagus Tips. With dark sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger and toasted sesame seeds, the dish is oddly refreshing and deeply flavorful. It’s easy to half or double, as the case may be, and it’s also impossibly quick to prepare, which I especially appreciated on this summery day as it allowed less time in the kitchen and more time to go around the block with little ones on training wheels. Note: the recipe calls for thin Chinese egg noodles, but I successfully substituted ramen noodles (without the flavor packet) since that’s what I had in the pantry.

Click here for the recipe for Sesame Noodles with Asparagus Tips.