Thai Chicken Larb Salad

Spicy, Salty, Sweet and Sour. It packs a punch of flavours!

I just adore Thai food. The spicy, salty, sweet, sour and fresh flavours are tantalizing to your tastebuds. Though some people might not be fans of fish sauce, but it's ok in moderation.

Here's a pretty quick salad that's something different. I combined a few different recipes and added my own twist to it.

Even my new housemate who hasn't had much appetite of late had 2 servings of this yummy salad.

Ingredients:

• Chicken Mince
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Coriander (including the roots)
• Cucumber
• Green beans
• Basil
• Mint
• Kaffir lime leaves
• Dried chilli flakes
• Fresh chilli
• Bean sprouts
• Fish sauce
• Lime/lemon juice
• Sugar
• Salt
• Peanut oil

Directions:

• Heat oil in wok, add the minced garlic, ginger and coriander roots
• Add chicken mince brown and break into little bits with dried chilli
• Add fish sauce and sugar 
• Add the chopped up green beans and stir until heat through, this is all the cooking done.
• Remove from heat and toss in all the remaining ingredients, all chopped up except the beans sprouts
• You can top it off with some crushed peanuts for the extra crunch but I ran out of peanuts.

BEST Tuna Salad - Super Healthy

 

So the other day at work, Ms KB brought this amazing tuna dip to our Cheese Day Extravaganza and I loooved her dip, if you left me with it I would have polished it off and maybe even ignored the cheese (!). It was that good. She told me it was super easy to make, just 1 tub of Philly cream cheese and tuna with some lemon juice, S & P. Seriously it was good and simple.

I've made it and loved it. But the whole experience was shadowed by a twinge of guilt with the philly cream cheese. When I reported back to Ms KB about how much I loved the dip, she told me the alternative healthy version was to use cottage cheese. Well I know how much my friend ItsyBitsy's partner Hulk30 was loving cottage cheese during his bulking up stage, so I know it's super healthy.

Here's the tried and tested BEST Tuna Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 medium can tuna in springwater
• 1 250g tub of cottage cheese (lite, if you want)
• 1/2 sliced spanish onion
• 1/2 apple chopped
• 1 handful of chopped parsley
• 1 tablespoon seeded mustard
• Generous squirt of lemon juice
• Salt &  Pepper

Directions:

Mix it all up and eaaaaat it now!

Left Overs and Whatnot

So for the lovely Ms Neverthlands farewell back to the US of A, I made a hasty dinner for a group of us to say goodbye. Lucky it was the Monday after Earth Hour weekend, with plenty of left overs from the bbq we had (which was great fun! Totally doing it again in 2012~)

So I toss some pre-marinated drumsticks in the oven to grill, while I concentrate on pasta that I throw together with whatever I could find in the pantry. Also there's a Waldorf salad - plenty of food for 5.

For the pasta, I had some left over sausages, tomoatoes, parsley, onion, garlic, chili and capsicum.

African Night

Been too distracted lately to update my kitchen, but it's been bubbling away happily. There's been a few dinner parties recently. From one end of the world to another.

First was an African Night I had for some friends, so I made African Peanut Chicken Stew, a quinoa and baked pumpkin salad and Curry Beef. Everything was really delicious. Though I must admit to cheating a little as I got a pack of South African Durban Curry sauce in a satchel. This really cut my work in half - Yay!

Initially I wanted to make a couscous salad, but then turns out my pack of couscous is kinda....past used by date, oops. But fear not, there was a pack of Quinoa readily available in my pantry. I've had this grain-like seed once, and really liked it

. But the salad's recipe is basically from the back of the can of Cole's Chickpeas. It was so easy. I even showed my friend Mr Singerboy the dish, he loved it and made it for his flatmate :)

This was such a colourful salad, I'd definitely make it again.

It consist of:

CucumberCapsicum
Chickpea
Coriander
Cumin
Quinoa
Lime juice
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Just toss everything together!

The African Peanut Chicken Stew was pretty yummy also, actually this was my flatmate's favourite dish actually. This was the first time I cooked with peanut butter. I just love my one pot wonders :) These things usually taste better the 2nd day.

Accidental Cooking

The other night I was too tired after work to go grocery shopping and knowing how well stocked my fridge was, never fret.

Found this gorgeous red steak in the freezer and considered making vietnamese beef noodle soup. I had the noodles and soup base all ready, just need to defrost the meat.

As I was slicing the still slightly frozen meat (so it's easier to slice than completely defrosted). I noticed a somewhat fishy smell...the steak can't be off right? Eeeks! But then on a closer inspection there was a bit of "skin" on it... interesting.....then *BING* I remembered I had previously froze a piece of Tuna steak in the freezer. Ooooh but now i've already thinly sliced it. Wat to do wat to do?!?

After putting away the noodles and soup base, coz they surely don't work with thin tuna slices. I checked the fridge to see what else was there on offer. Found me some Bocconcini cheese, salad leaves and spring onion. Well an asian fused salad it is. I made dressing with some fish sauce, sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds and soya sauce. The salad was yum - fresh and the right balance of flavours.