recipe: thai spicy peanut butter noodles & chicken satay

i'm dying to go to thailand. seeing as this isn't in the foreseeable future, cooking thai is the best i can do while i wait. i have a cold, so i needed something easy... and spicy. tried 2 from old-trusty allrecipes.

spicy peanut butter noodles

i followed this recipe pretty much as written. i couldn't find Udon noodles so used stir-fry rice noodles, chili paste was non-existent in my supermarket so i used a tube (that sounds gross?) of fresh-chopped chilis that seemed like the next best thing, and didn't have green onions so i used chives since we have a plethora of them in our garden. i also added in an additional splash of chili oil since i was really craving spice : ) as far as the finished product, it was really good, BUT missing the sweet-spicy that i was hoping for. spicy yes, but the honey and peanut butter were barely a glimmer. next time i try this i'll up the PB, honey, and maybe even try some coconut milk (the rice noodles can be very sticky to work with, so it may also help to smooth out the sauce a bit also). 5 stars *****.

chicken satay

i probably could have just grilled the chicken and dropped it into the above spicy PB sauce, but i was looking for an excuse to cook more thai. i didn't read the reviews before prepping this marinade, and when i did noticed a lot of red flags about over soy-saucing. eeek! i added double/triple the amount of PB before cooking. like the above, the finished product was really good, BUT... not the sweet/spicy it should be. definately could taste the soy, but the brown sugar & PB was completely lost. less soy, more sugar next time. 5 stars ***** (reviewed just as a general chicken dish, not as the intended sweet/spicy dish)

drinking water as we speak to compensate for the sodium influx. the thai recipe quest TBC. also... as an aside... learned one important lesson today. apparently chicken/beef/veggie broths go bad after ONE WEEK of opening. ignore the long expiration date on the container, the post-open date is only 7 days. had no idea. i usually buy the big boxes and keep them on hand in the fridge for a splash here/there as needed... and apparently have been adding rancid broth into my dishes for some time now (sorry friends). time to go to the store and stock up on the tiny broth cans.