Amazing Chicken and Pork with Potato Salad and Pickled Ginger

You know when your kid says, "someone should put this in a cookbook," that you need to start writing this stuff down. The game: dinner improv. The objective: make those leftovers in the fridge into something new. Now.

Here's what I was working with: 3 grilled chicken breasts 1/2 lb of grilled pork loin 7-9 baked potatoes, partly peeled, somewhat dessicated from being in the fridge uncovered 1/4 bermuda union, peeled 3-4 8" long zucchini or green squash fresh cilantro 1 bottle The Ginger People Ginger Sesame Sauce Pickled ginger

I knew I wanted potato salad from the git go, so I chopped up the onion and the potato into large chunks and threw them together in a bowl. From there I was a bit stuck, because we had no celery, so I set it aside.

I julienned the chicken and pork into 1/3 inch cubed strips, and covered that with the Ginger sauce.

Next up I peeled the zucchini and sqaured off the stem and bottom. I sliced the zukes lengthwise in half then sliced each half into 1/4 inch thick slabs. The slabs, I laid out on the cutting board and cut several long thin stips from each slab. The result were long light green noodles of squash.

On with the burner medium high, and with 2 tsp of canola oil in a saute pan, I started the zucchini. That reduced over about 10 minutes, and then I moved it to the side of the pan, and in the space created I added the chicken and pork in a mound.

This is when I went back at the salad, now armed with the classic mayo spread, and a handful of chopped cilantro. But that was not enough. I like a snap to my potato salad... and this is when the magic happens. The palette of flavors that is your fridge... ahhh... with a little sniffing and searching I spied the perfect x-factor. The Pickled Ginger!

A healthy pinch of sliced, pickled ginger was diced coarsely and added to the potato mixture. The pink of the ginger and the green cilantro were perfect for the creamy potato salad.

By then the zuke and the meat were all heated up, and ready to be out on the plates... I dished it up for each on our favorite wedding-gift crockery from my friend.

What a nice surprise. A gourmet dinner... and I pulled it out of... um, let's not go there :-)