A recent trip to our farmers market scratched this memory out of my head the other day.
One of my favorite memories took place in 2010. My combined high school and college buddies all got together for a week in Minneapolis, MN over July 4th.
It had been such a long time since we had all gotten together. We ate a lot and laughed a lot and did some touristy things. It was like no time had passed by even though there were several children involved this time around who weren’t around in college, of course.
One of the things that makes it seem even more special now is the fact that one of us would be dead a year and a half later.
My friend Candy died in April of 2012 after a massive heart attack.
She had a blast on that trip and remembering her laughter the whole week made her passing a little easier.
She and I had been best friends since the sixth grade. When she got married and started her family in Killeen, I was starting my life in Houston, but we always kept in touch.
On the Minneapolis trip we went to see fireworks at a park. We had gone grocery shopping and decided to make Pioneer Woman’s Asian Salad for one of our meals. The night we were supposed to eat that meal we ended up eating out instead, so we ended up taking this salad to the park to eat while we watched the fireworks.
I can still remember Candy saying that this was the first time she had ever eaten salad at a park.
Here is the recipe. There are a lot of fresh ingredients and a lot of changes you can easily make. Any fresh vegetable would be OK. The Asian part is the dressing anyway. I think we cut down on the heat of the peppers since there were children involved. This makes a huge salad but can easily be made smaller or even larger.
Best of all every ingredient can be purchased right here in town.
Asian Noodle Salad
1 package thin linguine noodles, cooked, rinsed, cooled
1/2 head sliced Napa cabbage
1/2 head sliced purple cabbage
1/2 bag baby spinach
1 red bell pepper, sliced thin
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced thin
1 orange bell pepper, sliced thin
1 bag Bean Sprouts
1 bunch chopped cilantro
3 green onions, chopped
3 cucumbers, peeled, sliced
1 can (about 10 oz.) whole cashews, lightly toasted
Dressing
1 lime, juiced
8 tbsp. olive oil
8 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. sesame oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp. fresh ginger chopped
2 cloves Garlic, Chopped
2 jalapeños, chopped
chopped cilantro
Lately I’ve been craving chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for some reason. I hardly ever crave cake because we hardly ever ate it growing up.
Does anybody have a tried and true chocolate cake and chocolate frosting recipe?
Please email it to me if you do. And any other recipes you like. kyle@rockdalereporter.com
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.