Sesame Chicken Pasta Salad

I LOVE pasta salad especially in the summer when you don't feel like eating something hot and heavy. I adapted this recipe from There's Always Thyme to Cook and it was great!

Ingredients:
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1 (16 ounce) package pasta
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup light soy sauce
• 1/3 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 cups chopped, cooked chicken breast meat
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/3 cup chopped green onion
• 1/3 cup shredded carrots
• 2 T vegetable oil (for cooking spinach)
• fresh spinach ( I used half a bag)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente. Drain pasta, and rinse under cold water until cool. Transfer to a large bowl.

While boiling the pasta, pour vegetable oil into a small pan and heat. Add spinach and cook until wilted.

In a jar with a lid, combine vegetable oil, soy sauce, white wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, sesame seeds, and pepper. Shake well.

Pour sesame dressing over pasta, and toss to coat evenly. Gently mix in chicken, cilantro, spinach, carrots and green onions.

Serve hot or cold. (I prefer cold)

SO good and great for leftovers!

Linking up to these parties

DIY Burlap Pumpkins

As if I still don't have enough pumpkins, I had to try one last idea. This one took a little thinking, but they came out really cute!

To make these, follow the pumpkin tutorial here, but with a small twist. Instead of using a printed fabric, I used burlap with a layer of thin beige fabric underneath. I used clear fusible webbing to attach the burlap to the beige fabric and then following the pumpkin directions mentioned above.


Of all my pumpkins this year, these were my favorite.
I love the texture and natural look of the burlap.




If you'd like to see the other stuffed pumpkin designs, go here and here.

Party it up at these fun link parties!

Simple Leaf PIllow Tutorial

I was walking through Walmart and saw these cute leaf placemats for $3. I showed Hubby how I read on Tattered & Inked that Kelsey took 2 of them and sewed them together to create a pillow.

Anyway, he convinced me to make one for our house...he always makes me buy things when we go shopping! He came up with a way to make the pillow even cheaper by using only 1 placemat instead of 2. See how my crafty creativity is rubbing off on him?

So here's my placemat before. I used the seam ripper to rip out some of the stitches attaching the leaf to the back of the placemat.

Then I stuffed it and pinned it back up.
It took a couple minutes to sew the hole closed.

Voila! New fall pillow in 15 minutes!

My Favorite Fall Recipes

I wanted to share some of my favorite fall goodies from the past year.
They're all so good that it's hard to pick!

Low Fat Pumpkin Fluff

Low Fat Pumpkin Angel Food Cake

Pumpkin Pecan Bread


Apple Maple Glazed Chicken


Amazing Pecan Pie


And by the way, I may just need to go on strike from looking at food blogs until after the holidays. There is SO much yummy stuff out there and you all make me wanna pig out!

See where I'm linking up to here