Napa Cabbage, Chicken and Thai Peanut Sauce Salad

We inherited our friends' CSA haul for two weeks while they're out of town, which has literally been a life changing experience. My mom jokes about her "balanced lifetime" philosophy towards vegetable eating, developed to avoid guilt over my picky eating in childhood; the idea was that over the course of a whole lifetime, I'd eat enough vegetables. Well, this week has certainly made up for those early years - I probably have had more servings of vegetables than I did for the first decade of my life.

Today I chose to use the giant, gorgeous Napa cabbage from Tantre farms and made this delicious, hearty, healthy protein-filled salad, with an absolutely delectable homemade peanut sauce I found on the internet from a great site called shesimmers.com. This is my new favorite thing, and the chef/blog author says it keeps for weeks in the fridge. I can imagine a lot of other uses besides salad dressing too, like stir frys (fries?) or satays.

For salad:
1 head Napa cabbage
1 chopped green onion, mostly white parts
Black sesame seeds
Toasted sesame seeds
Unsalted peanuts
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed

Cut up green leafy parts of Napa cabbage into bite size pieces and put in bowls. Garnish with unsalted peanuts, black and toasted sesame seeds, and chopped green onion. Meanwhile, cook the cubed chicken pieces in a nonstick skillet with some olive oil. Put chicken on top of prepared salads and top with Thai peanut sauce, add sea salt and pepper to taste.

For Thai peanut sauce dressing:
1 13.5 oz can of coconut milk
About 1/4 cup of Thai red curry sauce
3/4 cup peanut butter (I used chunky but the original recipe says creamy)
1/2 tablespoon salt
3/4 cup sugar (I used a little less)
2 tablespoons white vinegar (can use cider too, just not red)
1/2 cup water

Combine everything in a saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium heat, whisking constantly.
Let the mixture simmer for 3-5 minutes.
Serve over salad.

Salad adapted from shesimmers.com, peanut sauce recipe at http://www.shesimmers.com/2009/03/how-to-make-thai-peanut-sauce-my-moms.html

West African Peanut Soup with Chicken

I've been craving this dish since we saw it at a stand at the Eastern Market in Detroit, and found this version on Allrecipes.com. Delicious, flavorful, and very filling, especially with a good crusty bread. I added chicken to the original recipe which gives it a bit more dimension. I also minced the onion, peppers and garlic in a food processor because I don't like a lot of crunchy texture, but you may want to just finely chop with a knife if you want more texture.

* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 onion, finely chopped (recipe called for 2 originally, but I downsized)
* 2 large bell peppers (any color) finely chopped (I used red)
* 6 large cloves garlic, minced (I upped to 8 cloves)
* 1 (28 ounce) can chopped tomatoes with juice
* 8 cups vegetable broth (I used a mix of chicken broth and vegetable, which is what I had on hand)
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper
* 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
* 1/2 cup uncooked rice
* 1 (18 ounce) jar creamy peanut butter
* 2 chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
* Chopped roasted peanuts (optional)
* Sea salt

Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Mince together onion, bell pepper and garlic until very fine, and then cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomatoes with their juice, vegetable broth, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Add rice to soup and stir. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 25 minutes, or until rice is tender. After about 15-20 minutes of simmering, cook the chicken in a separate skillet - saute in olive oil for about five minutes until cooked through. When rice is cooked, whisk in peanut butter and cooked chicken and return to a simmer for several minutes. Garnish with chopped roasted peanuts, if desired, and sea salt to taste.