Pad Thai Chicken Salad

During my illustrious, yet short-lived career hustling men's clothing in Marshall Field's in Water Tower Place, I fell in love.  With a salad.  The chicken pad thai salad from Wow Bao.  A half salad and a couple BBQ pork steamed buns made me forget all about the endless pile of Buffalo jeans I had to fold upstairs.  The dressing smells like dirty feet.  You gotta trust me on this.  It's amazing. 

Never tried hacking a recipe before.  I lifted the basic recipe for the dressing here: I didn't pay attention to the salad recipe at all.  After a little tinkering, here's what I came up with.  It made two big salads for my lunches and about a cup of extra dressing.

Dressing

1/2 c boiling water

2 Tbsp tamarind paste (yes, I made my own--maybe you can find it at a Thai grocery?  The link tells you all about tamarind and making your own paste)

1/4 c. packed brown sugar

1/4 c. fish sauce

2 Tbsp chili paste

Juice of two limes

3 Tbsp sesame oil

Whisk water, tamarind paste, and brown sugar until all is dissolved.  Whisk in fish sauce, chili paste, lime juice, and sesame oil.  

Salad 

Handful of rice noodles (I used about 1/3 box)

4-5 leaves green leaf lettuce

1/4 c. roughly chopped fresh cilantro

2 Tbsp roughly chopped fresh basil

2 Tbsp roughly chopped fresh mint

1 1/2 c. bean sprouts

1/4 c. chopped peanuts

1 c. blanched snow peas

1 c. shredded napa cabbage

1 chicken breast, baked, cooled, and sliced

Crushed red chili flakes to taste

Slice of lime (optional--very pretty!)

By all means, use less red pepper or lime.  I like a lot of spice.  I start by putting the noodles on the bottom of a bowl, toss the lettuce and cabbage with the herbs, and place them on top.  Then add the chicken, peas, sprouts, red chili flakes, peanuts, and place the lime on the side.  Keep the dressing in a small container until ready to serve.  You can add/substitute any veggies you want.  Water chestnuts and tiny florets of blanched broccoli are perfect.

Spring Ombré Nail Tutorial

Ombré is pretty hot in nail fashion, and I'd never given it a try until this week.  Ombré is just a fancy word for shading.  Light to dark.  There are a couple ways to do this, and I suppose I took the route that required more polish, less tools.  There is a spongeing technique that I will inevitably investigate, but this way is more magical, I think.  Ignore the white flowers for now--that's a whole other tutorial!

Pink ombré with white blossom stamp.

The polish:  You need bottle of clear and a bright red.  I like Wet 'n Wild's Clear Protector, and Spolied's I Tripped On The Red Carpet.  That red's got a little shimmer, and is a predictable, bright red that looks nice even under fluorescent light.  Anyone who works in an office like mine, sees their red polish change from candy apple in the sunshine to maroon indoors.  Drop 10 drops of the red into the clear bottle.  Shake well and get ready for the magic.

The technique:  5 layers of polish, plus a base coat.  After a good base coat, paint just the top 20% of the nail, like a French manicure.  Dry.  Next layer, start at the 40% line.  Paint right over the first layer.  Dry.  Then paint 60% of the nail.  Dry.  Then 80%.   There should be a nice gradient effect going.  It will be very pale pink near the cuticle, and get brighter toward the tip of the nail.  If you like the look, throw a clear top coat on and be done.  If you want a little more pop, paint over 100% of your nail with your transparent blush polish.  You can do anywhere from three layers to six or seven, depending on how patient you are with dry time.  

The white flowers are from the Konad stamping system.  I'll explain that in another blog.  Happy polishing!