Pasta Salad

Monday mornings are a terrible time for me. To make things easier Monday morning, I usually try to go to sleep earlier on Sunday night. Last night I turned my light off at 10:30 pm (or, as I prefer, 22:30). At 1 am I was still lying in bed wide awake. I fell asleep shortly after that, only to wake up every half hour. I have no idea why this happened, I didn't have any caffeine in the afternoon, and I was pretty tired when I went to bed. Today has been a very rough day. I just keep looking at the clock and wishing it was time for me to go to sleep for the night.

In the meantime, I promised K I would write a blog post today. The recipe can be found here. Because I was eating it for dinner, and planning on having some leftovers, I didn't mix everything altogether, I kept the noodles, dressing and baby greens in separate containers.

I made the noodles by cooking up some Catelli Smart linguine. You could also use whole wheat spaghetti or soba noodles. I used the Catelli Smart ones because that is what I had on hand. Once the noodles are cooked, they are drained and run under cold water to cool them down.

I tossed them with 1 tbsp sesame oil, the zest from a lime and an orange, chopped cucumber, carrots, green onion, and red bell pepper.

I placed some mixed baby greens on a plate, topped them with the noodles, and drizzled the dressing over top. The ingredients for the dressing included peanut butter, lime juice, orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and red chili flakes. The original recipe called for adding 1/2 cup of oil, but I omitted it because I didn't see a point to the oil.

The recipe was pretty quick to put together. The hardest part was chopping up the produce. The sauce was tangier than what I expected though. I think next time I would only use the juice from half of an orange, and use less rice vinegar. I also used chunky peanut butter, which added some extra crunch to the salad.

Overall I enjoyed it, and it didn't really feel like I was eating salad for dinner. It would be a great recipe on a hot day since the pasta is eaten cold.