Thai Chicken Salad with Sesame-Miso Cucumber

Here is the first of my lactose-free dinners. It was quite yummy, actually, and not that hard to achieve the lactose-free-ness of it.

I found the recipe in a Cooking Light magazine, which is where I am getting most of my recipes for my special diet weeks. Here is a link to the Thai Chicken Salad and here is one to the cucumber salad.

This recipe called for a decent amount of chopping. Those are cucumbers up in the top photo. Just slice them in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon, then slice in the other direction.

I made two versions of the cucumber salad...one fresh and the other sauteed. We preferred the fresh one. Cucumbers just need that crunch.

I prepped the chicken for the salad ahead of time. The recipe called for 2 rotisserie chicken breasts, but I didn't want to buy any. So I just used the chicken I had. I actually only used one breast (and I'm glad I did!). I just cooked it in some olive oil and cracked black pepper on top. Yum!

Once it cooled, I shredded it for the salad.

It was topped with a warm, creamy dressing made with coconut milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, brown sugar, lime juice, and crushed red pepper. It seemed a little strange to be dressing a salad with a warm sauce, but Ryan and I both thought it was surprisingly delicious. Serve with fresh limes--it makes all the difference.*

*I actually like to save the lemons or limes that come with my water at restaurants and squeeze them over my entree. I don't like them in my water, but their juice adds so much pop to many types of food.