Cooking Classes, New Venues, Good Friends and Spiralized Lo Mein

It's been a fun week! Second week of the new job and I'm still thrilled with the decision (ok the fact that it was payday on Friday might have something to do with that.)  The weather in Minnesota has been beautiful – today it was 70 degrees.  I've been expanding my walking from 3 to closer to 4 miles each day. The trail is filled with walkers, bikers, roller bladers and a skateboarder here and there.  All signs of Spring.

Last week Dan and I took a vegetarian cooking class – we made 7 dishes in 3 hours – we were busy! There were 5 students in the class and somehow Dan and I each ended up making 2 dishes – maybe we are crazy cooks or over achievers?  I made a Dahl and a Quinoa salad and Dan made a black eyed pea and cabbage bake (which we're planning to recreate for St Paddy's Day on Tuesday) and a mushroom risotto.

We got some great new dinner ideas and lots of containers of leftovers. This week I'm taking an African cooking class which I'm really looking forward to because we're cooking with collard greens; one of my favorites veggies.

Last night we met a friend from L.A. he was in town attending a conference (which he was one of the Keynote speakers.) We tried a new local venue called Saffron – the food was delicious. We started out with hummus dressed with a spicy oil and warm pita bread . The menu had a nice range, our friend is a meat and potatoes kind of guy and we well aren't, but the menu accommodated all of our needs. I had a delicious vegetable tangine with chickpeas, carrots, squash, onions, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and spices – I was not disappointed.

Today I was hungry for something fresh – so I logged into the Inspiralized site and found an Asian lo mein recipe:

http://www.inspiralized.com/2015/03/03/daikon-noodle-vegetable-lo-mein/

I headed off to the local Asian grocery store to get some baby bok choy, green scallions and a few other things I couldn't live without. I changed the recipe up a bit (of course) and spiralized 2 carrots and one zucchini in addition to the daikon radish to add some depth to the "noodles." I elimianted the baby corn and mushrooms (only because I didn't have any) and I added some edamame for protein. 

The result was a keeper - here is picture of it in the pan as it was cooking:

And once it got to our plates we added some dark brown gain bread as a side, we're still debating over who gets the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

Whether you're Irish or just pretending to be, have a Happy St Paddy's day and don't forget to search for the pot of gold.