Secret Recipe

Before I reveal this week's top secret recipe, I should first say to all of my readers who may be monarchists, British subjects, United Empire Loyalists, Canadians, Australians (temporary or otherwise) or one of my mystery readers from the former British colony of Malaysia... Happy Victoria and/or Empire Day! To any Fenians, Americans, or my mystery readers from Russia, Germany, Japan and France... happy non-holiday Monday! We have had a busy holiday weekend here in lovely London - lots of parties, barbeques and family events happening. Our veggie spring rolls were a hit and have been requested as a future MM recipe. Stay tuned - more on that later.

So to return to the aforementioned secret. One of our favourite restaurants (we have been to locations in Chicago, Fort Myers and several in Michigan) is California Pizza Kitchen. Strangely enough, (because they do not offer dairy-free cheese) I have never actually had pizza at this chain which was named for it. But they have such interesting soups, pasta dishes and appetizers that I always have lots of meatless options from which to choose. But the CPK dinner salads are my "go to" option whenever I eat there. I had had the "Roasted Vegetable" salad many times and I started looking at the other options to see if I could branch out into something new. I noticed that the "Thai Crunch Salad" sounded delicious, but had chicken in it. I asked the server if I could substitute some grilled mushrooms for the chicken, she agreed and, after a short wait, I discovered that I had a new favourite salad.

It was delicious, crunchy and slightly spicy. I told Christina right away that I had to try to figure out the recipe. I searched and searched on websites like "Top Secret Recipes" and "Copy Kat Recipes" without much luck and actually gave it up for awhile, but after our recent March Break meal at CPK, I took some photos for the blog and decided to look again. Luckily, I found it right away on another blog. Apparently, CPK has now published a cookbook and made their recipe public. Great news for me and a great new recipe to share with you. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.