Noodle Salad with Peanut Sauce

There probably is a lot to update in the healing department but I think I will talk about the recipe first.

I have made this salad a million times, a different way each time.  When I thought about making it I realized I was missing some things I like to put in it.  My horoscope, however, said not to spend any money today, and that seemed really pertinent since right now I have no money.  {Side note:  I do not normally make any decisions based on the horoscopes that show up on my google home page.  Today however, I was feeling very spend-ish.  Like I might go to the health food store and spend money on tahini, tamari, and sesame seeds.  Instead I decided to make a fabulous dish with whatever was in my cabinets.  Kind of like the show "Chopped" only there is no chicken intestines or olive loaf.}

I was invited to a small gathering of some teacher friends.  We really enjoy each other but don't have enough time to see each other.  So I would be cooking for 4.  So, of course, I made enough for 20.  Learning cooking first at a restaurant  really warped my ability to figure out how much to make.   I only make this salad in the summer, and the trick is to make the noodles early before the heat of the day makes it impossible.  I cooked a whole box of organic whole wheat spaghetti at around 8 am.  Then I decided, I might as well do the whole thing.  The only risk with this is that my sauce may really soak into the pasta, but I will bring along a little rice vinegar to brighten up the flavor.


Ingredients:
1 box spaghetti
1/4 C chopped onion
1T of ginger paste or grated ginger (very optional)
1 crown (3 C chopped) broccoli
2 handfuls of baby spinach (amount is not important)
1 1/2 C peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
3/4 cup hummus (you could use tahini, but I only had hummus available)
{Side note:  Up to this point in the ingredients I was meticulously measuring what I was eyeballing for measurements because I don't measure.  It turned into a game of guess how much onion that is.  I am freakishly right on the money for eyeballing measurements.  Huzzah.  After this, I got in the zone of sauce making and the amounts are approximate (or maybe exactly right since I am a genius at eyeballing)}
Olive oil
Toasted sesame oil
2T Braggs Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce, or tamari)
1t fish sauce (optional)
1T sugar (honey would be better, but I was sticking to cabinets)
Now you need about 1/4 to 1/2 C of liquid.  I used to use orange juice.  You could use lemon juice but then you need more sugar to balance it.  Today I used peach-lemonade.  Perfect.
Rice Vinegar (about 1/2-3/4 C)

Directions:
Pasta
Cook the pasta in generously salted water.  Drain.  Add about 1/4 C olive oil to the pasta to keep it from sticking.  This is salad and it will be chilled.  The pasta needs to hang out without sticking together.

Use olive oil to keep noodles from sticking together

Transfer to a large bowl

Veggies
In a medium pan, cook onion in some toasted sesame oil.  Add some ginger paste.  Add broccoli with a little liquid (2T) (water, wine, whatever) to steam it a little.  Add 2 handfulls of spinach and cook until they are wilted but not so cooked they disappear.  If you're smart, you would cook garlic at this step.  I totally forgot.  Add this mixture to the pasta and stir.

My guess was 1/4 cup chopped

Sure enough 1/4 C

My guess was 3 C and 1 crown chopped was indeed 3 C

Sorry that it's blurry but Ginger Paste is so handy to have around 

Cooked broccoli and onions are underneath a couple handfuls of spinach

Sauce

Stir cooked veggies into pasta with sauce

In a food processor:  Put in peanut butter and hummus and blend thoroughly.  Then add Braggs and fish sauce.  Blend and then taste.  You'll probably say, wow that's too salty, I want to bring back the sweetness of the peanut butter.  Add the sugar, blend, and taste again.  You'll say ok, now I just need liquid.  Add juice - start with a small amount, blend and taste.  I would be surprised if you need more saltiness, but you can add more Braggs if needed.

Add the sauce to the pasta.  Yum.  Taste.  You'll say, wow that's good but it needs something.  Add in a little rice vinegar.  Stir and taste.  You'll say, wow yes.  Cool, more of that.  And so on until you have achieved perfection.  Serve on top of a bed of spinach.  Garnish with sesame seeds if you have them.  I used more leaves and cherry tomatoes on top.  If you're alone, just eat right out of the bowl until full and you'll say garnish, shmarmish this is so good.  This picture is deceiving.  It is not a regular sized plate.  It is a large serving plate.  This recipe would easily serve 12 as a side dish and 8 as a main dish.

Health Stuff
When I last blogged, I hadn't yet seen the surgeon and he had told me to stay home and rest.  Well, I couldn't quite stay home because I stopped getting pay checks and I started to feel panicked about money.  Sometimes I forget that I am in a we situation and my husband has money to give me to hold my individual stuff over and can pay our house stuff without my help.  Anyway, I went back for the last 5 days of school which felt great anyway, because I got to finish everything up and talk to the students.  I'm really going to miss my AP Biology class.  There were some awesome people in that class.

I saw the surgeon, and he had a student intern with him.  They concluded that things were not going well.  I had concluded this a while ago.  It felt like they were just staring at me and nodding in collective pity.  What do I do?  Wait and see.  Rest and walk.  Wait and see.  Continue on medication for now.  Up this one so you can lower that one.

My hopeful hypothesis is that I am a very slow healer and I have too much inflammation in there.  I am all for getting another steroid epidural but I guess they don't want to mask what is happening.  My hopeless hypothesis is that I have permanent nerve damage from compression of the nerve root for all those years.  Thankfully I have two hypotheses to bounce back and forth between.

At times, the pain is so intense I cannot imagine going back to work ever.  Other times, I feel like I have some management of it.  At times, like in the middle of the paragraph I hit a point where I MUST nap.  I just slept for two hours.  Sleep is necessary sometimes.  I'm not quite as weepy as I was, but falling apart always seems like a possible option.  Cooking is definitely a time to reflect, to focus, and also to escape.  I get very absorbed in the moment and think of nothing else.