Getting out of a Recipe Rut

Hello friends!  I hope you all had a lovely and relaxing Fourth of July weekend and got to spend some time with friends and family.

After a weekend of eating out and drinking, I felt like tonight I needed to do some home cooking.  However, I have been in a sort of a recipe rut where I basically have been making nothing but tacos. It's not my lack of creativity that is entirely to blame though.  Cooking in the summer is difficult because even if you have air conditioning you're usually not in the mood to turn on the oven/stove.  Many of my fall/winter recipes are shelved like my sweaters while I enjoy the few months of warm weather in Cleveland.

So I spent a bit of time with my cookbooks and the internet and found a few things that I will be making as the summer goes on.  Below is my first recipe to bring it out mealtime out of the rut:

Thai Chicken Salad with Rice Noodles from epicurious.com

So delicious.

Ingredients:

• 4.5 ounces rice stick noddles (maifun)

For the Dressing:

• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup fresh squeezed lime juice
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon creamy peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons chopped peeled fresh ginger
• 2 teaspoons hot chili paste (one brand is sambal oelek)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil

For the Salad:

• 3 roasted chicken breast halves, boned, skinned, shredded
• 3 cups shredded Napa cabbage
• 1 cup grated kiri
• 1 cup red bell pepper strips
• 1/2 cut thinly sliced onion
• 2 medium cucumbers thinly sliced
• coarsely chopped roasted salted peanuts for garnish

Cook the rice noodles in boiling water for about 3 minutes.  When finished, drain the noodles, and cut them apart with scissors (the noodles are hard to cut with your teeth so make them a reasonable size when you cut them with the scissors).  Arrange the noodles on a platter, so as to form a nest for the salad.

To make the dressing combine the seven ingredients (starting with the garlic) in a blender.  After you combine the first seven ingredients, slowly pour in the oil in order to make the dressing.

Chop up the vegetables for the salad and put them in a large bowl.  Then add the chicken and toss everything together.  Add the dressing to the chicken and vegetables a few spoonfuls at a time (you wont need all the dressing and can serve the excess on the side).  Once you have dressed the salad, place it on top of the noodles, add the peanuts and serve!

Do you have any meals you like to make in the summer?  Feel free to leave comments and help others get out/stay out of their recipe rut!

Looking forward to Pumpkin Wednesday!