New Recipe

When we got new counters I had to take everything off of them. Now that they are shiny and new I'm taking advantage of them being cleaned off and trying to declutter them a bit. The thing that looked the worst on my counters was my recipe box. It's a nice wooden box that my dad built, but I had a huge pile of magazine clippings of recipes balancing precariously on top. Seriously, this stack was 6 inches tall!

In an effort to reduce and keep this pile undercontrol I'm going to try to make at least one new recipe every week. If we try it and like it, I'll write it on a recipe card and put in away properly inside my recipe box. If we don't like it, it will get pitched.

So, here's the first recipe... Satay Chicken Pasta Salad from Pampered Chef. My substitions are in bold.

8oz uncooked bowtie pasta
1 cup lite Asian vinaigrette salad dressing 1 cup Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame salad dressing
2 Tbsp Asian Seasoning Mix (Pampered Chef) sprinkle of ground ginger and ground nutmeg
2 Tbsp peanut butter
2 med carrots, peeled
1 med red bell pepper
1/2 cup dry-roasted peanuts
1 cup lightly packed fresh basil left out
3 cups diced cooked chicken (about 1lb)

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain pasta, rinse under cold water. Transfer to large bowl.
2. Meanwhile, for dressing, combine vinaigrette, seasoning mix, and peanut butter. Mix well using a whisk and set aside.
3. Cut carrots into Julienne strips. Cut bell pepper lengthwise into 1/4in strips. Cut carrot and bell pepper strips crosswise into 1 inch pieces. Chop peanuts and basil.
4. Add chicken, carrots, bell pepper, peanuts, basil and dressing to pasta; mix well. Garnish with additional chopped peanuts, if desired.

The Johnson family review:
Ava: ate one piece of chicken, one piece of pasta and declared it "not good", and "too much brown stuff"
Maddux: ate one bite of pasta and declared himself done and full :)
Kevin: said it was "ok" but mostly just ate the chicken and left at least half his pasta, said he wouldn't request it for dinner again
Me: it had good flavor, the pb in the dressing was awesome!, but I think there was too much dressing and not enough chicken. I probably didn't use quite a pound though.

Satay Chicken Pasta's fate: it's going in the recipe box. While it's not a winner it was pretty tasty. It just needs some tweaking. It would make a nice summer dish since it's not a "served hot" dish. If I made it again I would probably let everyone add ingredients as to their own taste and mix it up individually rather than altogether in one huge bowl.

Here's a not so great picture after we had dished up.