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One new friend the hubby made is Scotty who happens to work at the Living Desert in Palm Springs. When the hubs mentioned his wife (that would be me!) was coming Scotty invited us to come to The Living Desert as his guest.
We arrived a little after 9 am and Scotty met us with our own golf cart and gave a us an informative private tour of the park which is hundreds of acres of desert conservation and a wildlife refuge.
If you thought the desert was just a dried up waste land then you are in for a surprise should you ever decide to tour this amazing place – and if you are in the area, I highly recommend it.
We saw all sorts of animals which have been rescued in one fashion or another – zebra, giraffe, antelope, birds and more as well as a really extensive array of desert plants. They also have this incredible model train exhibit with over 3,000 feet of track that travels through, among other things, a replica of the Grand Canyon.
We spent several very warm, dry hours at the park and had a really wonderful time.
When I got home I needed something cool and refreshing to eat. And it had to be quick!
Fortunately I had all sorts of yummy ingredients from my trip to Little Saigon so I quickly whipped up a rice noodle salad with a fish sauce dressing and threw in some left over roasted pork, chicken would have worked just as well.
My salad may or may not be very authentic but it was gluten free, refreshing, delicious and oh so satisfying.
I was too hungry to pay attention to exact measurements but it went something like this:
Gluten Free Rice Noodle Salad Recipe
Ingredients
2 big handfuls of fresh rice noodles (they come precooked)
3 slices roasted pork – shredded
1/3 cup fish sauce
2 small Thai chilies
2 Handfuls herbs – Thai basil, mint, cilantro
Honey
Fresh lime juice
Directions
I chopped the chilies finely and added them to the fish sauce. I them chopped up a handful of fresh herbs and stirred them in. Then I added about a tablespoon of honey and the juice of 1 ½ small limes. I tasted and adjusted the lime and honey to my tastes. The result was salty, sweet, tart and spicy.
I threw in the noodles and pork, mixed well and then added more fresh herbs.
Yum! This made enough for two but since I was alone I ate the whole thing and I don’t feel one tiny bit guilty about that!
Servings
This Gluten Free Recipe Serves 2 Hungry People!
Rice Noodle Salad – Simply Gluten Free
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Mmmmm..love all the flavours here Carol…especially the blend of herbs you chose…you can’t go wrong with those! Good on you for having the whole lot!
My two favorites–giraffes and turtles! So cute!
The recipe looks fab too :)
I love giraffes! And I love rice noodles. I’ve never made a salad with them- that sounds really good.
i just had to show my littlest sous chef the giraffe picture and now she wants the salad.
I just love rice noodles, I find them so satisfying and fresh flavours like these always seem to work perfectly. I don’t think you can specify amounts anyway as it’s all down to personal taste. You have made me hungry!
Carol, This looks just great! So simple but so yummy!
Your food photos are gorgeous. I usually get pretty grossed out by pictures of food but these… yum! Discovered your blog while searching for a fat-flush recipe using leeks. That leeks with salmon looks incredible– I didn’t post there though because I wasn’t sure you’d see it, since that entry is from January!
Have you been published?
Hey Carol, sounds like a great simple recipe, I love roasted pork. As for the noodles, have you ever had those Ki___ soy noodles? I obviously can’t remember the name of them, but they come in medium sized bags in the refrigerated section of the store and are filled with water. The oddest part is that the entire bag has only like 20 calories. I haven’t bought them yet but I’ve really been wanting to try them. I wanted to know if anyone has had luck with them and what you do with em!
The salad looks interesting, but the giraffe really won my heart! :) Lovely picture, indeed!
That is such a great quality your hubby has… oh that is so refreshing, that is not something that can be said for many or should I say enough people.
I’m a big fan of rice noodles.
Relaxing, blogging, cooking… sounds perfetto – have fun. And you recipes sound so good. I have to look into this gluten thing, I suspect I might have an issue too.
Those noodles look fabulous! It rates up there with the best of the Vietnamese noodles salads that I’ve seen. I think maybe, after visiting with you, that you must have been a Viet in a previous life!
Wish we could have met your hubby, maybe the next trip!
I wish I had that ability to make new friends too. I freeze in front of new people. Silly I know, but it’s something my body does on its own. Funny how humans are…. That’s fabulous that you got to meet new people and look at what you saw after meeting them! Beautiful! The salad looks so refreshing…