Tangled Thai Noodle Salad

I am a few weeks away from finding out if I qualify for an international double blind study for a new diabetic medication.  They provided me with the meter, the test strips, everything I would need.  One thing they also gave me was test strips for ketone – which I’ve never even tested before.  They told me if my blood sugar was ever over 250, I needed to take that test.

So here’s a weird thing lately.  Now mind you, I am not having cocktails at night anymore, or eating snacks even.  If anything I have a cup of tea or coffee with a splash of heavy cream after dinner.  Both Friday night and Saturday night last week I went to bed with a blood sugar reading of 95 and 105 respectively.  Totally normal.  Usually I’ll take my fast acting insulin at night, and typically whatever the number is before I go to bed should be the number within about 10 points when I wake up the next morning.

Both mornings my blood sugar was 270 and 290.  WTF?!  So I took the ketone test strips, and put it in the computer they gave me and sent off the information on Sunday morning.  Within 10 minutes my doctor called me and said “are you okay?!”  I said yes, and he said that he just saw an alert that my ketone was at 2% – when in actuality it was .2 – but the device wouldn’t let me add the decimal point, so it made it seem like I needed to take a quick trip to the emergency room!  Luckily, that was not the case, and they are trying to fix that function.

My blood sugar average is still on the higher side – 165 is my two week average so far this year, which is an A1C of just over 7 – and I’d really like that to be closer to 6.  #damnsugars

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Since I have declared my kitchen is no longer a diner that will cook food on demand, I’ve been asking the kids help in planning out the menu.  I try to do at least one meat free dinner a week, because not only would it make Hannah happy, it would also give Jacob and I a break on all the beef.

Hannah picked out this recipe off of my pinterest page of food I wanted to make.  I have to be honest, sometimes I just pin pictures that look good and actually look at the recipe later to see if it’s something I’d actually want to make.   I guess Fresh Restaurant is a chain of restaurants in Canada.   When I started reading through the menu I realized that the “noodles” were actually spiralized beets, and there wasn’t an actual noodle in the salad at all like I thought when viewing this picture:

First off, Hannah doesn’t like beets.  Second, I thought it needed noodles to be more filling for dinner.  Third, I knew that Jacob and I would miss the protein, so I grilled up some chicken tenders on the side for us.  So this recipe was INSPIRED by Fresh Restaurants Tangled Thai Salad – and for that, I thank you.  We all gave this a big thumbs up, and nice that we can all eat the same dish – even Hannah added a bit of chicken to hers!  Even if she did have to chop it up into a million pieces before adding it to her dish.

• 2 cups cooked pasta
• 4 cups chopped napa cabbage
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 1 cup cucumbers, hopped
• 4 teaspoons chopped peanuts
• 4 tablespoons chopped cilantro

For the dressing – put in a food processor:

• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons cilantro
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons lime juice (juice from one lime)
• zest from one lime
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons coconut milk
• pinch of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon sambal oelek
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup chicken broth or water

Mix the dressing together and pour into a mason jar.  You won’t need all of it.   Since I had just cooked my pasta, this was a semi – hot salad, which I liked.  The heat from the pasta kind of wilted the cabbage a bit, but the rest of the veggies were still crunchy.  To plate:  in a bowl add 1/2 cup of the cooked pasta, 1 cup of the cabbage, 1/4 cup of the carrots, 1/4 cup of the cucumbers, 1 teaspoon peanuts, 1 tablespoon cilantro.  Add as much of the dressing as you want and toss well.  Jacob and I each added 3 ounces of grilled chicken to our plates – but any protein would do – leftover steak, or pork would be delicious too.

Jacob and I preferred a bit more heat, so we added sriracha to our plates.  This was so light and refreshing.  Made us feel like we were eating this on a beach in Thailand, instead of in zero degree Chicago!

And thanks Fresh Restaurant for liking my picture on Instagram – sorry I added chicken to your vegetarian dish!

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Although Roman is almost four months old, he is still all puppy.  When I got home from work on Monday night, usually both dogs greet me at the door.  When I didn’t see Rummy, I knew something was up.  I walked into Hannah and Jacob’s bedroom and saw this:

Yep, that would be Roman who got in their garbage, but they are both looking at me like “what are you looking at?!”  And yes, that would be the new carpet I had installed right before we got Roman.  There are too many stains to count, but there are worse things going on in the world for me to get upset about it.

So later we are eating dinner, and Roman is usually under the table waiting for anything that might drop on the floor.  I think he knew he was a bad boy because he was sitting against the wall a good 10 feet from the dining room table. 

How can I stay mad at that face?!

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I am having my first WI since January 1 on Friday.  If you remember I was 177.9 on January 1.  I am hoping that my ditching the wine, curbing the night time snacks and getting my exercise in, even on the weekends, will pay off.  I decided two week weigh-ins made more sense because there are too many fluctuations from one day to the next.  So you’ll have to stop by and see how the first two weeks of 2016 went.  But in the meantime, I think this totally describes me, no?

Until then, follow me on Instagram – I have been having some amazing eats lately!

Make it a great day and stay warm Chicago!  Right now the air temp is –2 and with the wind chill and it feels like –15.  It would be a perfect day to stay home and watch the rest of the episodes of Making a Murderer on Netflix!