Vietnamese spicy chicken soup

Well, it's the third week of the new French Fridays with Dorie group and I'm finally joining in. Those of you who know probably aren't surprised that I'm this late. I'm not either, and I'm not going to make yet another excuse because I moved. This soup was wonderful. I now live near a Chinese market, so was able to get what I needed easily. The only changes I made to the soup were to eliminate the star anise (yuck) and to add fresh bird chiles and lots of fresh lime leaves to the simmering stock. I love the fragrance and flavour they offer. Following on an idea from Clivia of Bubie's Little Baker, I used leftover Thanksgiving turkey and turkey stock. I also added lots of fresh chopped herbs--cilantro, basil and mint. Now, go and check out the FFwD site to see what everyone else has come up with. And if you're a member, stop voting to make potatoes next month! Please? Vote for the squash 'n' sprouts, 'kay?

This tasted great last night, but I just got home from a tough day at school and had a bowl, and it was just as good. Not sure it can bring my voice back, but it was restorative nonetheless. No, I was not yelling at the kids to make me lose my voice! I have a cold. Refrigerate the noodles separately to keep them from absorbing all the liquid. 

The Daring Cooks go nuts!

How lame am I? The posting date for this was over 2 weeks ago, and I completely forgot about it. I made this rice noodle salad with a cashew dressing just before leaving for a month-long business trip. I am now on the train on my way home again, finally posting it. It was delicious, and the cashew sauce was the elusive peanut sauce I've been trying to perfect for a while. It was smooth and creamy with a strong hit of garlic and ginger. Also in the salad were poached chicken, red peppers, asparagus, snow peas, carrots and tons of cilantro. maybe something else too, but I can't remember now. There have been an awful lot of good meals in Toronto since I made this. Yum. Maybe I'll make it again now that I've got some free time in my future. Yay me!

Though I've long missed the deadline for this challenge, here are the blog-checking lines:

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

UPDATE: Here is the printable PDF of the challenge and a bunch or techniques and recipes.