Thai Noodle Salad With Peanut Lime Dressing

I spy a Thai Noodle Salad with Groundnut Citrus Sauce that wants to loooove you. 

Er, alright, getting there, at least. With the amend of this favorable emotional Asian Noodle Salad and its packed-in veggies, catalyst, bouncing fats, and statesman taste, I am doing both post-girls'-trip resetting to get backward to the norm of honorable healthy ingestion. And by "norm", I colligate the front minute in a few months thanks to all that ordinal trimester flakiness. Just let me pretense.

Our girls' initiate to San Diego this weekend was just… vessel, it was a lot of other things. Mostly it was truly overnice to get gone from Facebook and CNN and NPR broadcasting intelligence for a few days, and to someone 4-hour lengthened blessed hour composer and timepiece seals flopping in and out of the ocean and pop in for a lowercase ice cream at 11am because it's California and WHY NOT. We soaked up the sun and the ocean, we had dish delivered to our room for a midnight snack, and we reconnected over slack meals in fresh, adamantine, and pregnant ways.

INGREDIENTS

• for the dressing:
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2 large cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon lemongrass or ginger paste
• a couple BIG squeezes of lime juice (to taste)
• 1/4 cup peanut butter

for the salad:

• 3 large carrots, cut into small, thin pieces*
• 3 bell peppers, cut into small, thin pieces*
• 4 ounces brown rice noodles (regular rice noodles are fine, too)
• 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 5-6 cups baby kale or spinach
• 1 cup packed cilantro leaves, chopped
• 4 green onions, green parts only, chopped
• 1/2 cup cashews or peanuts

INSTRUCTIONS

1. PREP: Start soaking the rice noodles in a bowl of cold water. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. DRESSING: Pulse all the dressing ingredients in a food processor EXCEPT peanut butter. Place the chicken in a plastic bag and use about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the dressing (without peanut butter) to marinate the chicken in the fridge for about 15-30 minutes. Add the peanut butter to the dressing in the food processor; pulse, then taste and adjust. Set aside.
3. VEGGIES: Prep all your veggies and toss together in a bowl.
4. CHICKEN: Bake the marinated chicken for 15-20 minutes. Rest for 5-10 minutes, then cut and add to the veggies.
5. NOODLES: Drain the noodles (they should be softened at this point). Finish cooking them in a skillet over medium high heat. Add a little oil and a little dressing and toss them around until they are soft and pliable (if you need to add a little water to soften them, that works, too).
6. ASSEMBLY: Toss stir-fried noodles with the chicken and veggie mixture. Serve hot or cold. Top with extra peanuts and cilantro (and dressing, and lime juice, and sesame seeds, and…)

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