Spinach and Egg Salad

My friend Ana often makes this delicious salad when I'm over at her place for lunch. It's such a simple salad with spinach, hardboiled egg, and this yummy dressing (which I've adapted slightly over the years I've been making it):

1 minced garlic clove
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (I use the unfiltered kind)
6 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp each of salt and dry mustard
pepper to taste

Honestly I don't really follow the proportions, I just make sure I have all of those ingredients in there and sometimes I'll add more vinegar or garlic or mustard as the spirit leads. The more mustard powder you add, the more of a kick it has. I also squeeze some fresh lemon in it when I have some around.

Tonight I made the salad for dinner, so I thought I'd kick it up a bit: I added chicken, onions, and feta. It was awesome. Thumbs up from Adam.

Chicken and Spinach with Thai Peanut Sauce

Back in my halcyon days as a single girl living and working in the city, I had a regular "date night" with my BFF Jen. There was a Thai restaurant we frequented on Piedmont Ave in Oakland and we always ordered the same dish: Spinach and tofu in peanut sauce.

I don't eat tofu these days, but I got a craving for the peanut sauce and dug around online to see what I could make with ingredients I had on hand. I settled on this recipe, substituting just a little honey for the sugar and using rice vinegar. Normally I would have skipped the sugar thing entirely, but I was feeling crazy.

The dish I was trying to emulate uses a generous amount of wilted spinach and, of course, tofu, which I replaced with chicken. Nice and simple and delicious over rice.

If I were making this for company, I'd make everything separately. Or maybe throw the spinach and peanut sauce in together.

But on a regular week night, I'm all about one-pot meals. And in this case, I used my slow cooker and made it using my weekly chicken for stock. I put the chicken in in the morning, came back at lunch time and pulled everything out, put the broth back in the slow cooker with some brown rice, and then later in the afternoon I came back and added everything else in (chicken meat, peanut sauce ingredients, and spinach). Yup, I just mixed it all in right there. If you're picky about your rice, this did make it sticky, but I don't mind that.

I loved it. Thought it was yummy and peanutty with just a little kick from the curry paste.

Adam took one bite, got a shocked look on his face and said, "Peanut. Unexpected." (Surprised he didn't smell it...) Then he took another bite, declared it, "too sweet," and proceeded to empty a bottle of hot sauce into it to "balance things out."

I'll totally make this again; I'll just have to make sure there's plenty of hot sauce available for hubby.