Udon with Thai Pickled Cabbage and Grilled Chicken

Ohhhhhhh. 

This cold pasta salad is gooooood. So good. I'm a big, big fan of pasta salad. I have a friend that can't stand the taste and texture of cold pasta, and I'm afraid I can't relate. I can't even relate a little bit. I could eat cold pasta salad for breakfast, lunch, dinner, 4th meal, and beyond. The taste? Yum. The texture? Hits the spot. I can sympathize with my friend though, because there are plenty of yummy foodie things that I can't stand. Rosemary, for one. Beets. Liver. The hubby's green juice he makes in the morning. It's funny how one person's filet mignon can be another person's, well, liver and onions. 

Let's talk Thai Pickled Cabbage. I saw the recipe on one of the blogs I follow, Sidewalk Shoes, and I knew I just had to try it. Pam made it sound right up my alley. And it twas'. We've got lots of access to cabbage right now, with it being proliferous at the farmer's markets. Plus, the hubby's uncle grew some. I thinly sliced a whole head, and got it into that delicious pickling liquid as soon as I could. I ended up letting it pickle for 2 weeks, mainly because that's how long it took me to get to it! That 2 weeks did that cabbage good. Upon opening that jar, I was hit with sweet, salty, and earthy scents wafting up at me. And wow, does this cabbage ever have flavor. It adds so much to the salad. If you decide to make this dish, do not (under any circumstances) skip the pickled cabbage. 

When I first made the cabbage, I wasn't sure what I was going to use it for. I finally decided on a pasta dish, and since the pickled cabbage is cold, I deduced that the dish should be cold as well. I picked up a package of udon at the grocery store, a thick Japanese buckwheat noodle. All that was left to do was add a chopped, grilled chicken breast and some shredded carrot. Oh yeah, and make some sauce. I ended up making a saltier sauce to balance out the sweet and spicy of the pickled cabbage. It worked perfectly, the taste ended up an exercise in balanced Asian fusion. I sat down with a plate for lunch one day, and after a few slurps, it seemed the pasta had disappeared. Almost embarrassingly fast.

Oh, how I heart Asian food!

Happy Friday of a long holiday weekend! What does everyone have on tap? The hubby and I are nutty coocoo, and we are running another race tomorrow. I'll be running my first 10K. Funny how I ran a 7-miler before I ever ran a 10K. I'm excited, and a little nervous. The course is a little hillier than I'm used to, but hills are good for you. I really need to run more of them, I just get so comfortable at my little training spot. I haven't made a goal, because I'm not sure of what it should be.  The hubby and I ran hard last weekend, resulting in a little fatigue this week. We ran twice, and both felt hard. We did some cross-training at the gym yesterday, and today is just yoga. I'm going into the race with fresh legs, but I'm still unsure. Especially with a hilly course. I'd like to come in at 1 hour, but again, I'm not sure if that's realistic with the hills. I guess we'll see, won't we? We've also got a family cookout later after the race. I'll be preparing cupcakes today, yay for baking! I'm going with classic chocolate cupcakes, with vanilla frosting and sprinkles. Perfect for the kids.  After the cookout? The hubby and I will be parked on our couch, either asleep or awake cheering on the Ducks. I can't believe the Ducks are playing at 10:30 Eastern time. It'll be a miracle if we are able to stay awake for that. Then, there's Sunday...

Sunday is draft day! 

Yep, it's that time of year again for fantasy football! I can't wait to pick my team, because as of this very moment, I have not one clue of the direction I'm going. And I love that. One of our couple friends participates in the league with us, so they'll be here with us and we are making a tail-gate worthy spread. My girlfriend is making a taco dip and salsa, and I'm planning on whipping up bacon and cream cheese-filled jalapeños. And of course, there will be beer. No draft is complete with a cold brew!

Happy Labor Day Weekend friends!

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

Thai Pickled Cabbage-

1/2 cup lime juice

3 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp kosher salt

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp ground ginger

1 garlic clove, minced

1 head cabbage, thinly sliced

1 small jalapeño pepper, thinly sliced

Salad-

10 oz udon noodles, prepared according to package directions

1 cup carrot, shredded

1 chicken breast, grilled and chopped

Sauce-

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp hoisin sauce

2 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp honey

sesame seeds, thinly sliced scallions (optional-garnish)

Directions:

1. Prepare pickled cabbage- in a large mason jar, combine lime juice through garlic. Put lid on jar, and shake thoroughly. Open jar, and shove cabbage and jalapeños in. Cover, and shake. Place in fridge for 2 weeks, shaking every once in a while. 

2. In a large bowl, combine noodles, carrot, and chicken. Drain cabbage, and add to bowl. 

3. Prepare dressing- in a small bowl combine soy sauce through honey. Whisk to combine. Drizzle dressing over salad, toss to combine. Top with sesame seeds and scallions, if using. Serve immediately.

Printable Recipe

Thai Pickled Cabbage recipe adapted from Sidewalk Shoes.

Love this recipe? Try these!

Grilled Chicken Chow Mein

Hoisin Chicken with Spicy Cucumber Salad

Szechuan Green Beans with Ground Pork

Linked to: Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party, Treasure Box Tuesday

Garden Update: End of June

Happy Sunday!

Let's jump right in shall we?

Now, I just commented on one of my friends blogs, telling them I had no confessions to make. I lied. I do. My confession? I have a secret, guilty pleasure in watching the reality TV show, "Wife Swap". Love that show! This week's episode met all my requirements for good reality TV- Pseudo-celebrities (Speidi), childish behavior by adults, and girls with blowouts and stilettos beings forced to sit in the rain. The swap this week was between reality TV royalty, Heidi and Spencer Pratt, and Olympic swimmer, Amanda Beard. To lay down the basics, Heidi and Spencer live in Southern California with a huge house, no kids, 4 tiny dogs, no jobs, house and garden staff, and huge spending habits. Amanda Beard, in comparison, lives a very normal life in Seattle, Washington, complete with kids, a normal house, yard work, fishing in the rain, and real jobs. I was really impressed with how down-to-Earth Amanda Beard was. She's just a normal, hardworking woman trying to raise her kids with good values. Her husband seems like a great partner, and together they make a great team. Heidi and Spencer, on the other hand, disgusted me. Neither of them have jobs, yet Heidi spends all day shopping and Spencer spends all day polishing his crystal collection. That, and they are constantly going out. For every meal. Spencer takes Amanda Beard out to eat, and orders half the menu. WTH? Their spending reminded me of the Kardashians- obscene when there are so many people suffering in this country.

What really interested me was when the couples turned the tables (a classic Wife Swap moment). Amanda made Spencer stay in and cook a meal, and all he could do was complain about bored he was, how crappy the food was, and how staying home was "absolute hell". I was appalled. I can't imagine what these people would think of my life, which I consider "heavenly". I've come to love staying home to make dinner and getting my hands dirty outside. It's therapeutic. I've found almost any activity outside brings me closer to nature, closer to where people were meant to be. It brings me peace and tranquility in a way that shopping, drinking, partying, and the "One-Up Game" never did. 

I've said my piece. Moving on to pictures of my garden! The first picture is a picture of the day we planted the herb garden, while the second picture is of the crazy thing today. It's out of control!

The mint is the most crazy. Mom was sooooo right. 

The mint escaping its box. I'm going to have go cut those vines, it's intruding on the thyme.

Basil is coming out of my ears! A huge bowl full, plus more to harvest. In addition, that's a little pile of extra herbs I'm drying out to add to the compost.

Vacuumed-sealed 2 bags of pesto this week.

I harvested the cilantro till it died. Now, I've planted new seedlings that are popping up extremely well. Baby cilantro :)

Planted some lavender. I think I'm going to start making my own organic bug spray.

Tomato plants. I decided to combine them into one picture :) I mean, the post is already pretty pic-heavy. 

My Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I don't think this plant will be saved. But, I'm learning a lot about tomato plants!

If only these would ripen before the plant dies. I don't think it's going to happen. Boooo.

More tiny tomato plants. I don't think these are going to take either. Sigh. 

Enough sad looking tomato plants. My jalapeño plant is doing well. It has blossoms and even tiny fruit forming!

The cucumber has attached its self to the trellis. Exactly what it's supposed to do.

And, it's blossoming!

Green bell pepper, taking off.

Zucchini blossoms.

Lettuce and chard.

And what garden post would be complete without my friends who join me in the garden? Here's a couple of gold finches that came calling.

A lady cardinal munching away.

Incoming hummer! Love this shot :)

The woodpeckers are one of the few birds who don't care if I'm outside with them. They'll eat anyway.

I heart woodpeckers. Look at that little face!

I hope everyone is having an excellent weekend, I know I am. I got tons of fresh veggies at the farmer's market yesterday, had breakfast and coffee with my girlfriend afterwards, a Netflix afternoon with the hubby, and then date night last night! Pizza and beer at the local brewery, and then ice cream from the local Dari Creme. The hubby and I are coming up on 5 years of marriage next month, and yet sometimes we still feel like young kids that just met. While I'd never say marriage is easy, it has been the best thing that ever happened to me. Events have transpired this week (I'm not going to get into them) that have made me eternally grateful to have that man firmly planted at my side. True love is a beautiful thing :)

Have a great day everyone!

Everyone Gets Homesick...

A funny thing happened. I was editing photos for this week's recipes in iPhoto. I had just finished up the work I wanted to do that day, when an older photo album caught my eye. Actually, it was the first photo album the hubby and I have on iPhoto. I'm not sure why, but I felt compelled to browse through the photos. That album happened to be the first trip the hubby and I ever took to Hawaii. Looking at that album inevitably led me to looking at quite a few other albums. Which led me to feeling a touch homesick. I've been here for 3 1/2 years, but I still get pangs of homesickness that are as strong as they ever were. It's hard living so far away from everything you grew up around. Don't get me wrong, I love living in Kentucky. I love the weather, the wide open spaces, the old-fashioned politeness people still have around here. But, I love everyone and everything I left behind too. Well, maybe not the weather, but you know what I mean! I'll be back with recipes tomorrow, but here's what's on my mind today:

Well,  duh. The main reason I always get homesick. My parents and little brother. Yes, I said little brother :)

Boating with friends at Fall Creek Reservoir.

Grilling out at my parents house.

Autzen Stadium!!!

Oregon football. It's tough watching games out here on the East Coast. First of all, you're lucky if the game is on a channel you have. Second, you're lucky if the game starts before 11 pm. Damn prime time!

Multnomah Falls.

Haloti loves the falls :)

Going to the coast whenever you feel like it. Heck, having fresh seafood whenever you feel like it!

Being so close to California. I was only a {long} day's drive away from San Francisco.

Camping at Detroit Lake.

Fresh crawfish from Detroit Lake. I didn't eat them, but the boys sure gobbled them off. Could be all the cocktails they downed with them... :)

I miss all the evergreens! Taken from a bridge that my brother jumped off. Yep, the hubby and I watched the little brother bungee jump from here. I stayed up high with my feet safely on the bridge.

Dog parks. Actually, I think both Haloti and I miss the dog parks.

Uh, my friends. Another duh :)

So many gorgeous parks. This park was near the hubby and I's last house in Beaverton. 

One of the last sight's the hubby and I saw as we were leaving Oregon in December 2010. 

Annnnnnnd, I think it's time to book my trip home this year!  

Happy Monday everyone!

Cincinnati Beer Run 2014

Well, it's Tuesday.

The weekend has come, and sadly, gone. I never got a chance to post my Monday post. Yesterday was crazy! One of those days you have after you've gone away for a long weekend, only to come home late Sunday night and realize the housework didn't go away while you were gone. In fact, it seems to have inexplicably multiplied. There's laundry to do, the grocery shopping must be done, the grass must be mowed, dinner must be prepared, dogs must be walked and fed, bird feeders to be filled, compost to be tumbled, etc. Not a lot of time for blogging when you've got a full day. I should have been up at 6 working on the blog yesterday morning, but instead I slept in till 8. I never sleep that late. I'm blaming the tequila-hangover-hideousness that was Sunday!

We had a great time in Cincinnati! We drove up Friday afternoon, which just so happened to be one of the hubby's cousin's wife's (that's a mouthful!) birthday. After meeting at one of the cousin's houses, we schlepped out for Mexican food. Delicious, delicious Mexican food. And no Mexican food outing is complete without a margarita.

The girls. I'm in the middle in the polka dot shirt. Coincidentally, both of the hubby's cousin's wives are named Kim, so we'll just go with Brunette Kim and Blonde Kim. It was Brunette Kim's birthday. The lucky girl is still in her twenties :)

The hubby is the only one missing from this picture, but someone had to be the photographer.

We were leaving for the race on Saturday morning at 8 am, so needless to say no one stayed up real late on Friday night. Come morning, we were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

For the most part. Not everyone's a morning person!

Ready to run!

The hubby and I decided to represent U of O on our run. Crazy enough, the hubby and I met another Duck fan! We met a guy who had just moved from Eugene to Cincinnati a year ago. He said he still works for the same company, which is based out of Eugene, so he makes a lot of trips back to Oregon. He asked us how we liked it here, and we chatted for awhile. He seemed pretty homesick to me, I felt bad for him. I definitely know how that goes!

The hubby and his cousins. They're Toys-R-Us kids. They're never gonna grow up :)

The race ended up being a ton of fun. Hard, I must admit, but fun. I've never been inspired to drink, and then exercise, and now I know why. It's not easy. The race was set up to start in Florence, KY, which sounds crazy, but it's actually just right across the river from Cincinnati. The race had us crossing the bridge from Kentucky into Ohio and back into Kentucky. That part was pretty cool, I thought. Every half mile there was a beer stand that was serving locally crafted microbrews. You could stop at all the stands, or you could stop at none of them. I opted to stop at all of them. I must say, running after guzzling a beer is like shaking beer up in its bottle, only it's getting shaken in your stomach. Not something anyone is going to want to do on a regular basis, but as a novelty? We all enjoyed ourselves.

And after we were done running, it was time for margaritas. Giant, fish-bowl sized margaritas.

And... this is what we looked like after the margaritas. I'm not sure who joined us in the picture :)

Brunette Kim hitching a ride with Blonde Kim.

Boys will be boys.

We headed back home early on Sunday morning, seeing as it was Mother's Day. We proceeded to spend the afternoon eating Lemon Blueberry Crumb Bars with my mother-in-law. So yummy. So obviously I've been back to the grindstone for a day now. I've got another crazy day on deck. Grrr. The only thing that must happen today is the harvesting of the fresh cilantro. It's gotten out of control! I don't know what happened, but we came home from Cincinnati and it looked like we had a little forrest of cilantro. Good thing I need to make some salsa :)

Happy Tuesday!