Thai Chicken Noodle Salad

This salad was really quite good; however, I don't think I chose the best day for it, or even the best meal for it.  It's very light and refreshing.  It would be perfect for a summer day luncheon.  Instead, I made it for a rainy day dinner.  And yes, technically it is still summer, but it feels like fall.

It's actually quite easy as well, once you've acquired the ingredients.  And although it calls for an English cucumber, a good old U.S. cucumber tastes the same.  The English cucumber is just more cooperative when it comes to slicing.  It's nice and straight and therefore slices easily and each piece is identical to the next.  And I couldn't find anchovy paste.  I had to mince a single anchovy out of the can.  I suspect the folks at HyVee think I'm nuts.  Frankly, I really didn't taste the anchovy, but I suspect the dish would lose some depth without it.

The only thing I didn't include in the recipe was fresh basil.  It is really hard to find for some reason.  I need to start growing my own herbs again.  It's so annoying to go without, and this is one instance in which dry basil would be a poor substitute.

The recipe came from the Everyday Food "Light" cookbook. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients for Salad:

1.25 pounds boneless, chicken breasts, thinly sliced and marinated in Spicy Asian Dressing.  The dressing recipe follows.

2.5 ounces Chinese rice noodles

1 Tablespoon Vegetable oil, such as safflower

2 medium carrots, shaved into ribbons

1 English cucumber, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise

.24 cup fresh basil leaved

Assorted garnish, such as bean sprouts, chopped peanust, fresh mint leaves, red pepper flakes, and sliced scallion greens, which are all optional.  I just added chopped peanuts.

Spicy Asian Dressing Ingredients:

4 scallions, white parts only, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves minced

.5 cup soy sauce

.25 cup rice vinegar

2 tablespoons light-brown sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

.5 teaspoon anchovy paste or 1 minced canned anchovy

.5 teaspoon red-pepper flakes

Instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients of the Spicy Asian Dressing.  Bring ingredients to room temperature.

2. Place chicken and half of the Spicy Asian Dressing in a ziploc baggy.  Marinate at room temperature 20 minutes.

3. Cook Chinese noodles according to instructions.  Drain and rince

4.  In large skillet, heat oil over medium-high.  Working in batches (do not overcrowd skillet) cook chicken until cooked through.  1-2 minutes.  Placed chicken on top of noodles.

5.  Add carrots, cucumber, and basil.  Drizzle with reserved dressing, and serve with garnishes as desired.

Moroccan-Style Split Pea Soup

I'm dedicating this weekend to cooking. This preliminary week back to school has been rough on the diet. I realized that I need to have a lot more food prepared so all I need to do is warm it up; otherwise, I will do very bad things, like go through drive-thru. In addition to the soup I'm describing here, I've already made hummus, kombucha, and marinara sauce. Tomorrow, I plan on making vegetable-beef soup and chicken salad. My refridgerator is overflowing. But for someone who is as obsessed by food as I am, that's a comforting feeling.

I don't know if I ever had split-pea soup growing up. I suspect that one or both of my parents disliked it. As an adult, I'm not the biggest fan of the stuff yet, but this same cook book that I used last week, 1,000 Low-calorie Recipes has a Moroccan-Style Split Pea Soup recipe, and I do like Moroccan food. I love the strange marriage of spices we'd never consider putting together, like cinnamon and cumin, and yet, they really work.

The soup itself is ok.  It's filling and different than what I usually eat.  It'll be a nice change of pace now and again, but if I ever make it again, I'll leave out the cilantro.  It's too overwhelming.  I don't know if the other spices' flavors are lost in the cooking or whether they're simply masked by the cilantro.  Although I'm not one of those people who hate  cilantro because to them cilantro tastes like soap, I'm not too far off.  I prefer just a hint of it to as opposed to being hit over the head with it.

 Again, the calorie count is different in the book than what myfitnesspal.com has come up with.  The book says 150 calories/serving.  Myfitnesspal figures 114 calories.

Moroccan-Style Split Pea Soup:
Ingredients:
1 Tble Olive Oil
1 large onion chopped
1 large carrot finely diced (I use baby carrots. I like the convenience. I think I used 5 or 6)
2 tsp rice vinegar
1.5 tsps salt
2 large garlic cloves minced
1.5 tsps gingerroot grated (by the way, scraping gingerroot with the edge of spoon really does work well for scraping. I tried it for the first time tonight)
64 ounces ouf vegetable broth Swanson makes a 32-ounce carton
1.25 cups of split, dried, green peas
.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
.5 tsp ground cinnamon
.25 tsp ground cumin
.25 tsp ground turmeric
.25 cup chopped fresh parsley
.25 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, viengar, and .25 tsp of salt cook until onion is softened, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and cook one minute.

2. Add the broth, split peas, pepper, cinnamon, cumin, tuermeric, and remaining 1.25 tsp salt. Bring to a boil over high. Reduce to medium-low and simmer uncovered for 1.25 hours. Stir occationally.

3. Stir in half the parsley and cilantro. Add remaining Parsley and Cilantro to individual bowls.

Ok. I didn't do the whole individual garnish thing. I added it all at once. When you reheat most of the soup, there's simply no sense to garnishes.

Cincinnati-Style Chili

I know. I haven't blogged in ages, but while I was on the low iodine diet in preparation for my follow-up scan, I wasn't eating much of anything let alone anything interesting. Then after the scan, I went a little crazy eating stuff I shouldn't have. I gained three pounds, and I really knuckled down, and I've lost that weight, so now I feel as though I can play again.

Not too long ago, I got low calorie cookbook, with the highly original title of 1,000 Low Calorie Recipes...I'll prove it.

See, I didn't make it up. Tonight I tried one of these recipes for the first time. It's called Cincinnatti-Style Chili. It was interesting because it has chocolate in it, and it's served over pasta. I dated a guy from Cincinnatti once, but we never got around to discussing chili, so I don't know how authentic it is. This recipe definitely gave my spice rack a work out. The only thing I didn't have was fresh oregano, but on top of cocoa powder, it called for chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, allspice, cayenne pepper...believe me, it smelled fabulous. It was a bit spicy too. Thank goodness I had a tall glass of kombucha. Beans were optional. I don't like chili without beans, so I added some pintos. Now the book said it was 290 calories a serving (it makes 6 servings), but when I figured it out with myfitnesspal.com, it was about 324. Not only was it good, but it was easy too. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 tble grapeseed or canola oil

1 pound ground turkey

1 large sweet onion, finely diced

1 large gralic clove minced

1 tble Worcestershire sauce

1 tble apple cider vinegar

1 (15 ounce) can no-salt-added tomato sauce

1 cup low-sodium vegetable broth

1/2 ounce unsweeted chocolate finely chopped or 1.5 tbls unsweetened cocoa powder

2.5 tsps chili powder

1.5 tsps ground cinnamon

1 tps. cumin

1 tsp salt

.75 tsp ground allspice

.5 tsp cayenne pepper

.5 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp chopped fresh oregano

1 pound spaghetti or linguine

Instructions: 1. Heat oil in large pan over medium high heat. Add turkey and onion and cook until the onion is softened and turkey is crumbled and just cooked through, about five minutes. Reduce heat to medium, add garlic, and cook 1 minute. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and vinegar and cook for 1 minute.

2. Stir in the tomato sauce, broth, chocolate, chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, salt, allspice, cayenne, and dried oregano and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered. Stir in fresh oregano and serve over cooked pasta.

I'll definitely being having this again, and I'll be exploring a lot more recipes from it.