Mark and I have good days and bad days.
No, our marriage is not in trouble. I’m talking about food. The good days are full of salads, Asian food and grilled chicken. The bad days are, oh, let’s see. Krystal? Why, yes! Fried chicken and mashed potatoes laced with sour cream? Seconds! So we try hard to space out the bad days between the good ones lest we return to the early days of our married life in Reno when blissful happiness and a lack of attention to dietary detail led us each to gain about 30 pounds. I am not kidding.
Last night was one of the good nights. We had a stunningly delicious salad created by Food Network Magazine. It involves lots of fresh veggies and chicken sauteed in Thai peanut sauce, which you can find in the Asian section of most supermarkets. This incredibly healthy salad allowed us room for…you’ll be disappointed in me…the Bacon Crumble Apple Pie that I made for Bacon Wednesday at the Community Resource Center. Oh, yes. You’ll get the recipe for that soon enough. Now eat your salad.
Here’s the recipe for the salad or just hop on over to the Food Network site and read it there.
Chicken Satay Salad (From Food Network Magazine)
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (about 1 pound)
7 tablespoons (about 1/2 cup) Thai peanut sauce
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 head romaine lettuce, sliced
1/2 English cucumber or 2 Persian cucumbers, cut into matchsticks
1 medium carrot, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for topping
3 tablespoons chopped roasted salted peanuts
Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium high. Slice the chicken breasts 1/2 inch thick and toss with 2 tablespoons peanut sauce, 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste in a bowl. Grill the chicken until just cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
Whisk the remaining 5 tablespoons peanut sauce and 2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil, the lime juice and 2 tablespoons water in a large bowl. Add the lettuce, cucumber, carrot, bell pepper and cilantro and toss. Season with salt and pepper and divide among bowls. Top with the chicken, peanuts and more cilantro.
(Note: I added a few splashes of fish sauce and one diced serrano chile to the dressing and it jazzed it up quite a bit.)
