Thai Vegetable Salad and Back to Routine

Our home is now quiet again, and seems a little bit larger than it did before we hosted my family reunion for nearly two weeks. We had such a wonderful time and the days flew by in a stream of good great food, fantastic wine, perfect weather, laughs, adventures and about 10,000 photos.

Oh my, did we have a lot of cameras going.

Here's one of the photos:


All of us! Love those people!

I'm not even going to attempt to recap everything we ate and cooked up together, nor the adventures and escapades we got up to, for they were all epic.

"Epic" was the word of the reunion, from the production of getting the entire gang pictured above to the heart of the Montreal International Jazz Festival for a live Brian Setzer concert (with oh, about 150,000 other people), to each meal we sat down to, squeezing all 17 of us around two tables pushed together (oval tables- how awkward is that).

Epic. In the very best of ways.


The best part of sharing your kitchen with others is the great recipes they bring and new suggestions that get you out of any cooking rut you may happen to be wedged into.

My sister Haidi tossed up this fresh and vibrant salad for a little party we through for friends. Served alongside sliders, made with our local beef, the salad was filling, satisfying and a nice change-up of flavors from my usual salads.

Add a fresh strawberry sundae to round out that menu, as we did, and you have yourself a pretty fantastic game plan for summer entertaining.


Lime, cilantro, sesame oil, ginger and jalapenos are just a few of the flavors that make this salad a party in itself. They all are combined in a kicking vinaigrette that coats crunchy cabbage (green & red), cucumber peppers and baby spinach.

This lovely recipe comes via Ree of The Pioneer Woman, and is a clone of her Thai Noodle Salad, minus the noodles, obviously. We also left out the bean sprouts, but that was an oversite due to the amount of people and kids running around - or lack of sleep, who knows.


Head to The Pioneer Woman Cooks for the recipe - and a whole lot of 'how-to' photos. Holy Smokes!

Try her version, or leave out the noodles and bean spouts and make our veggie-lovers special. Enjoy!

Happy Independence Day weekend to my friends to the south! If you're stuck for a cool salad idea for your backyard barbecues, I highly recommend this salad for a change of pace.