Shanghai Salad

First off I have to say-

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO TYPE WITH A KITTY PAWING AT THE SCREEN???

Charlie has developed this obsession with pawing the computer screen in search of the little space shuttle mousie. This has now begun to get annoying- she just now knocked over my tea all over the desk! OY!

So last night I tried a new recipe. It's from that great cookbook "The Good Carb Book". It's called Shanghai Salad and can be served alone or on top of lettuce. I decided to use the lettuce for the extra veg- wouldn't have it any other way! Here's the recipe:

Shanghai Salad (this was for our two big salads)

2 cups cold cooked angel hair pasta (WW of course!)

3 green onions, thinly sliced

1 large carrot, coarsely shredded

1/2 cup chopped water chestnuts

1/2 cup chopped bamboo shoots

1 large chicken breast, cooked and sliced thinly

1 bag baby lettuce mix

Grape tomatoes

Snow peas

Red pepper, julienned (I didn't have any)

Dressing ingredients- Mix together and fridge for 2 hours!

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tbsp honey

1/4 cup Splenda

2 tbsp sesame oil

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp finely minced ginger

1/4 tsp chili paste

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1/2 cup veg oil (or EVOO)

Toss the noodles and everything but the chicken, tomatoes, snow peas, and lettuce with 1/4 cup of the dressing and fridge for 2 hours. When ready to eat, layer on a plate lettuce, noodles, tomatoes and snow peas, and chicken. Drizzle on additional dressing if desired. You could add chow mien noodles or something, but it really is fabulous just like this!

My friend Linda- who farms the best eggs- has been sharing her "can't-wear-'em-anymore" clothes with me for the last couple months. She gave me another great bagful of shirts today that I am so excited about! I can't tell you how much she's saved me from buying lately. It's great! She also has chickens and we buy our eggs from her. If you haven't had a farm-fresh eggs before, try it once. I swear you will NEVER go back to store-bought! We switched in March, and have only bought store eggs once since then (and that was an emergency). There really is nothing like it. I eat one every morning! They have ten times the flavor of the others and they are the one thing we eat I can say are truly LOCAL. Look for a local farmer!

Garden is getting happy! There are two or three little zukes, the cukes are growing a million little ones, and I even have one small Japanese eggplant! Going to use that and a zuke tomorrow night. There are roma tomatoes everywhere- including a volunteer in the onions! My early butternut plant is covered to the tips with little babies! Luckily my friend Jane wants some, or we'd be eating it every night this fall! The cantaloupe plant has only only melon, but it's still very early. The sweet potato plants are vining out nicely, just wish I could see how they were doing underground. My artichoke finally looks like it may want to send up a stalk this year after all. I was beginning to get grumpy about it. It has sent out many new and more vertical leaves in the last two days. Seems a good sign? If anyone knows about growing them, I'd love advice!

Off to start getting things ready for dinner- BLT salads tonight with croutons made from that rosemary onion focaccia!