The other week, I was perusing foodtv and ended up liking this Soba Noodle-Vegetable Salad recipe by Ellie Krieger. Who’s Ellie Krieger? I have no idea, but this salad looked good. Wet ingredients on the left, and “dry” ingredients on the right, it was quite simple. Why did I make this when it was 30 degrees out? Sometimes, I’m not so seasonal. This would be a great light meal when it’s hot out.

I left the mint and basil out of my version, because I’m not too into hunks of mint or basil. But it tasted just fine to me with just the cilantro. The salad is extremely crunchy and the dressing is tangy and good. It also looks quite beautiful with all the intense colors. It actually tasted even better a day later when the soba noodles had gotten more firm. When you first make it, the noodles get a bit too soft. Once refrigerated, they harden up again. Here it is served up with some of the asian inspired pickles I had made. I had gone to the food bloggers potluck and had eaten way too many of these. I made them on my own and they turned out just great. And if I can make em, anyone can make em!

The building next door is hosting the Patio Cafe on wednesdays for the summer, offering box lunches for a steal. They come with a burger or hot dogs or a rotating special (chicken the first week, tuna steak this week) and then a bunch of other tasty treats. You get your choice of chips, a little side salad (potato, pasta, etc), soda, and dessert. They’ve had cookies, brownies, and cake. They also have fixins for your burgers and dogs. All this for only $6. It’s even less if you get the hot dogs.

The first week it all came in this adorable little carry out box. It was so popular the first week that they ran out of burgers and people got stuck with hot dogs. The burgers are 8 oz angus burgers, and after you eat this thing, you don’t really have much room for the other things afterwards. So then I had all the rest of the day to chow down on chips and cake. Yes, that piece of chocolate chip cake is as big as you think it is. And I ate it all. Yum! It was a simple angel food cake with chocolate chips and it was perfect.

Last friday, chef Donald wasn’t there, but one of his super grillers were. We had some grilled steak and turkey dogs, along with some saladworks. It was all quite quite delicious. There’s just so many reasons for TGIF!

Mmmmm… we had wraps and salads from Saladworks Wednesday. They had 5 different types of salads, including my favorite – Mandarin Chicken. It has greens, cucumbers, dried cranberries, chopped chicken breast, mandarin oranges, carrots, chow mein noodles, and the sweet oriental sesame dressing (I threw some other stuff from other salads in mine too). YUM. Basically it’s all sugar, but it’s all so good. I’ve had it before with breaded chicken chunks (basically chopped up chicken fingers) and baby spinach, and it’s even better that way. I don’t like those weird random mesclun greens anyway. I like plain lettuce or spinach. The wrap was an odd egg salad and chicken salad combo. I’m not sure why they were together. But it was fine nonetheless.

They also had these amazing giant cookies. I had the oatmeal raisin and it was delightful. It was too big for me to even eat in one sitting. Bigger than my hand, seriously. I was in a training class today too, so they brought us sandwiches from Panera. Ugh. I was excited because I really like their chicken salad, but there was a random mix of sandwiches today. I ended up with a roast beef sandwich that looked safe enough, but then I bit into it and it had gobs of mustard on it. I don’t like mustard at all. But I’d already started eating it so I felt I had to eat it. All I could think to myself was “yum, I am really enjoying this mustard sandwich”. Note to Panera – don’t put mustard or mayo on sandwiches. Just give us some packets so we can decide on our own!