a recipe, a song, a photo, a quote

Volume 1 - because I hope Anna of The Heart's Overflow will do this link up again soon!

R E C I P E - this one has been around since college! Back then Good Seasons made an Oriental Sesame dressing mix that was the base of the sauce, but my mom, being the resourceful woman that she is, found a sesame dressing recipe in one of her Sunset cookbooks that we have used ever since. The mom in me also appreciates that this change makes everything 100 Days of Real Food compliant (or at least can be if you use all honey as the sweetener).

I will say that I usually only make this meal when we have leftover chicken from a roast chicken - then the only thing to do is make the dressing, boil the noodles and chop/grate the veg. Easy peasy. But adding the cooking chicken part doesn't add too much time to the whole thing - so I would still put this under the "quick and easy" tag.

Thai Chicken and Sesame Noodles

An Americanized version of chicken satay with noodles that are "pad thai" - ish.

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Asian

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup Sesame Dressing divided, see below
• 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast halves cut into strips
• 2 Tbsp. chunky peanut butter
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• ¹⁄₂ tsp. crushed red pepper
• 8 oz. Whole wheat spaghetti cooked, drained
• ³⁄₄ cup carrot grated
• ¹⁄₂ cup green onions sliced
• ¹⁄₄ cup cilantro chopped
• Sesame Dressing
• ¹⁄₂ cup salad oil divided (I use avocado oil)
• 3 Tbsp sesame seeds
• 5 Tbsp soy sauce
• 5 Tbsp white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• ¹⁄₂ tsp salt

Directions

1. Pour 1/3 cup of the dressing over chicken in medium bowl; toss to coat. Cover. Refrigerate 1 hour to marinate.
2. Mix remaining dressing, peanut butter, honey and pepper; set aside.
3. Cook chicken and marinade in large skillet on medium-high heat until cooked through. Mix spaghetti, chicken, carrot, onions and cilantro in large bowl. Add peanut butter mixture; toss to coat. Serve immediately.
4. For the dressing:
5. In a small frying pan, combine 1/4 cup of the salad oil and the sesame seeds. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until seeds are golden (about 2 minutes). Let cool. In a 2 cup container, combine the remaining salad oil, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and salt. Add the seeds and oil once cooled and stir well.

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S O N G - all I really get to listen to these days is kids' music. Fortunately my friends/family (who are the ones who've given us the only CDs in our children's CD collection) have really good taste - so when this particular song goes on repeat, I don't mind too much. (Verse 3 is my personal fav :) )

P H O T O - this one was actually just taken today in my neighbor's yard. I wish I knew what these little flowers were, because their smell was heavenly! My little dude had to toddle over to see why I was sticking my nose in them.

Q U O T E - I haven't written down any good quotes lately, so I had to go back into the archives to find one to share... Here's one from Lauren Winner, in her book Wearing God:

Thanks to Anna for the link up! Head over there for other posts like this one (I'm personally looking forward to seeing other people's recipes!)