Vegetarian, low-fat, gluten and dairy free side dish...

I ended up making two salads - a cucumber and radish salad with a pickled ginger dressing, and this carrot salsa verde salad, minus the anchovies: http://www.food52.com/recipes/15033_carrots_with_salsa_verde

Wow! Green papaya salad with tofu? Cabbage salad with a chili/mirin dressing? Green beans with a spicy garlic sauce or XO sauce with out the dried shrimp bits. Cucumber salad. Vietnamese table salad. Pickled root vegetable salad. That's hard, good luck and let us know what you decide.

This is a favorite recipe of ours - I add walnuts, sometimes parmesan. We like a little heat so I saute serrano peppers with the garlic and shallots.

Executive Chef Cris Comerford's No Cream Creamed Spinach

Ingredients
2 pounds baby spinach, washed and cleaned
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 shallots, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Method
1. Blanch half a pound of spinach in salted, boiling water. Immediately, “shock” the blanched spinach in a bowl of iced water. Drain and squeeze out the excess water. Puree in a blender. Set aside.
2. In a large skillet, sweat the shallots and garlic until translucent. Add the rest of the spinach leaves. Toss and sauté until wilted. Fold in the spinach puree. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 6.

The rice noodles & eggplant w/peanut sauce sounds like it could use some contrasting texture - how about an Asian slaw dressed with a sesame-lime dressing?