It’s Monday again. I hope you had an excellently exciting weekend.

A lot of my favorite bloggers are posting pictures of their weekend but I’m going to spare you that show. Unlike theirs, my weekend did not consist of yummy food, pool parties and oodles of socializing. In fact, most of my friends have peaced out of Boston and are vacationing this week. So I did almost nothing this weekend. I didn’t even bother wearing real clothes for most of it and pictures of me in my pajamas does not make for an interesting blog.

I did manage to go to the late showing of Ted on Friday night, which was hysterical. After that though, I pretty much spent all day Saturday in bed and soaking up the air conditioning. I enjoyed it, trust me, it just wasn’t picture worthy.

Anyway, so this week consists of a little holiday called the Fourth of July. Most of you will be enjoying the day off, BBQ’ing and boozing it up, with a nice little fire works show afterward.

I’ll be working until 9:30 pm. Apparently, retail stores don’t close on the 4th?? Who knew.

But, I wanted to give you a recipe that you could take to your cookouts that was a little different. Burgers and potato salads are so predicable. This is a nice little twist on the pasta salad.

Blanching system. Let’s pretend my stove isn’t uber gross and just focus on how awesome it is that I unintentionally matched all my pots and bowls!

Peanut Pasta Salad with Fried Tempeh Bits
from Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook; posted on Madejustright.com

Makes 4 Servings

• 4 tablespoons sesame oil, divided
• 1 (8-ounce) block of tempeh, crumbled
• 1 large carrot, julienned
• 1/2 cup broccoli slaw (you can also use broccoli florets if you want but the texture creeps me out which is why I went the slaw route)
• 1 red bell pepper, julienned
• 1 (8-ounce) package of brown rice pasta spirals (or any other pasta)
• 3 tbsp  peanut butter
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tbsp soy sauce, to taste
• 1 tbsp agave nectar
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp minced fresh ginger
• Sesame seeds, for garnish

Directions 
1. Heat 3 tbsp of the oil in a skillet over high heat. Fry the tempeh until slightly crispy, about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch the carrots, broccoli, and red pepper separately until they turn bright in color, or about 30 seconds. Do not overcook. Drain, rinse under cold water, and set aside. (I had three bowls set up for this which I found easy: 1 pot with boiling water, 1 pot with ice water, and one pot with  mess strainer over it. (See Above) So you boil the veggies for 30 seconds, plunge them in the ice water until their cool, and then dump them in the strainer. For the broccoli slaw, I put the broccoli in a different mesh strainer with handles on the side, plunged the strainer with the broccoli into the hot water and then into the cold water. This way, since the slaw is so finely cut, you don’t have to worry about fishing little pieces out of the water.)
3. Cook the pasta, according to the directions on the package. Drain and set aside.
4. In a blender, mix together the peanut butter, the remaining sesame oil, the water, soy sauce, agave nectar, vinegar, and ginger. Toss the vegetables, pasta, and sauce together. Garnish with the sesame seeds. Serve warm.

Blanched veggies!

Voila! Something new and exciting to bring to your BBQs. Don’t forget some veggie patties and you’ll be good to go.

Stay tuned this week! Tomorrow I’m posting a 4th of July sweet treat and some other recipes that are BBQ worthy. That’s right… I used my time Sunday to actually plan out this week’s posts and be productive! Crazy how much you can get done when you don’t sleep until noon like I did on Saturday. I did still spend all Sunday in my PJs, though…