Asian Spinach Salad

Mmm...this was delicious. The flavors all together with the chicken and pasta made the perfect summer pasta salad. I was thinking this would be an easy something to bring to a potluck, but it also made the perfect main dish for dinner. Little B ate it pretty well and the Hubby and I gobbled it down. I found the recipe on This Week for Dinner, a new favorite cooking blog. Here's the link. Thanks for sharing Jane! I just made some minor modifications because of what I had, but nothing big. The recipe is below, with the things I did, or you can just follow the original. It's so good so you really should try this!

ASIAN SPINACH SALAD

For salad, toss together:

1 small bag of spinach
8 oz. bowtie pasta (cook, strain, cool)
2-4 Tbsp. Sesame seeds
1/2 C. Sunflower seeds
1 can sliced water chestnuts
3 chicken breasts – season heavily with lemon pepper, grill and cut into bite size pieces (I get really big chicken breasts from my grocery store, so I just cut up one of those, about 3/4 lb) (I also cooked it on the stove with a little cooking spray and lemon pepper, worked great!)
1 C. bean sprouts (I accidentally bought alfalfa sprouts, but I think they worked great)
(As to Jane's suggestion, I added about 3 green onions fresh from my garden and I think that really added to the goodness!)

Dressing:
(There was a bit of dressing left over in the bottom of the bowl once we were done, so next time I might try halving it to see if that will work)

1/2 C. Canola oil
1/2 C. sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
3 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp Seasoned Rice vinegar (unseasoned works too)
1/2 tsp sesame SEED oil
1 tsp grated fresh garlic
Mix all dressing ingredients and pour over salad. Store in refrigerator. It was good room temperature and chilled as leftovers the next day.
ENJOY!

Apple Chicken and Couscous

This recipe seemed odd to me, but I thought it would be interesting so I wanted to try it. I found it on the Parents.com website. This was another success. My Little B absolutely loved it! If you knew him, you'd know how picky of an eater he is, especially at dinner. It is hard to get him to eat lots of things, but he just gobbled down the chicken and asked for more. He loved the sauce. It wasn't just him. These are flavors that I wouldn't have put together before, but they are so good. I loved the dijon mustard in the sauce and, since I used pre-diluted apple juice, it wasn't too sweet. Try this and I hope you love it too! You can get the original recipe here, or use mine (with my modifications) below.

APPLE CHICKEN AND COUSCOUS


Ingredients:

1 cup unprepared couscous
1 cup baby spinach, chopped
1 cup frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed (If you don't have the concentrate, you could use prepared apple juice, then just don't add water to dilute it)
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (or however much chicken you'll need for your family, and I used chicken breasts cut thin)
1/2 teaspoon each salt and black pepper
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Directions:

* Place couscous and spinach in bowl. Heat 1/3 cup of the apple concentrate and 2/3 cup water to boiling over high heat in large nonstick skillet. Pour apple liquid into couscous. Stir and cover tightly with foil; set aside.

* Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Over medium-high heat, cook chicken 7 minutes per side or until cooked through. Fluff couscous with fork. Place chicken on top; cover.

* Whisk together remaining 2/3 cup apple concentrate, honey and mustard. Add apple concentrate mixture to skillet; cook 3 minutes over high heat. Drizzle chicken and couscous with sauce; serve with additional sauce on the side.

ENJOY!