Chicken with Cashew

This recipe was inspired by... well... really my pantry. For some time I have been wanting to make something sort of chinese inspired which uses chicken and cashew nuts. So today I came up with this really quick and healthy dish that you can make while the rice is cooking. This made enough for 4 adults.

You can serve it with rice, egg-fried-rice, noodles (or a noodle dish).

1 chicken breast - skinned, deboned and cut into cubes
1 large onion - diced
3-4 garlic teeth - sliced
1 tsp minced ingwer
3 handfull cashew nuts - I buy it loose and shook it out of the bag, so this is an aproximation
3-4 handfull frozen green beans - again, just shook it out of a bag and eyeballed it
1 tbs oil
3 tbs soy sauce (I use sodium reduced)
1 tbs rice vinegar
1-2 tbs mirin (sweet japanese cooking sauce)
1 tsp potato starch
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Fry the onions and ingwer, stirring constantly, until the onion is golden. Add the garlic and fry for about 30 seconds (be carefull not to burn the garlic as it turnes bitter)

Add the cashew nuts and fry for about 1 or 2 minutes. Add the chicken and fry for about 5 minutes, making sure all are cooked from all sides. Add the green beans and fry for another few minutes, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile; mix the soya sauce, vinegar, mirin and starch together. Once the chicken and green beans are cooked through add this mixture and mix well. Season to taste with salt, pepper and soy sauce.

Serve

French Toast with a nutty filling

In my household we always do Erev Shabat (Sabath Evening). The traditional ceremony involves blessing two Challas (white braided bread. You can get it plain (my hubbys favourit), sweet, which I like or with rasins).  Every week we are left with way too much Challa, which I turn into french toast Saturday morning. However, after eating it week in week out I started to get rather board with it. 

I read on the internet several times about filling french toasts and deep frying it. As I am just a little bit health concious deep frying is just not really what I would call for. So, I plaid around with some ideas and came up with this one. It is very versitile, supper easy to make and you can substitute the nut filling for other self made or  bought fillings. You need about 30 minutes from start to finish for a great breakfast.

16 slices of bread

Nut Mixture

1/4 cup oil OR 1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup packed brown or white sugar

1/2 cup chopped nuts - go wild, mix or just use one type.

Batter

1 cup milk

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 175°C.

During this time, heat the oil or butter together with the sugar to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in nuts. Set aside.

In a bowl mix the milk, eggs, granulated sugar and vanilla together. Dip 8 slices toast into the batter and place them back on the baking sheet. Spread a heaping tablespoons of the nut mixture onto each. Dip remaining bread slices into batter and place over nut filling to make a sandwich.

Bake for 20 minute or until hot. Serve immediately.

Prepare a baking sheet and place the bread slices on it. Bake for about 5 minutes or until lightly toasted. Remove from oven and set aside.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies

Tired of having to drop batter into individual cookies? Try this recipe for a cookie that is baked as a brownie and then cut into cookies!!!

½ cup plus 2 tbs oil

1 ¼  cup sugar

1 large Egg plus 1 egg yolk

2 tsp Vanilla extract

2 c and 2 tbs flour

1/2 tsp Baking soda

1 package chocolate chips (any flavor desired)

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)

1/2 cup pecans or walnuts (optional)

Dry fry nuts in a frying pan until light brown and aromatic. Transfer nuts to cutting board to cool; chop coarsely and set aside.

Do the same with the coconut.

Heat oven to 170C.  Prepare a 30 by 25 cm (or there off) baking pan; set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together oil and sugar until well combined. Mix in the rest of the wet ingredients. Sift in the flour and baking soda. Fold until just combined – do not over mix!! Fold in chocolate chips and nuts (if desired), and turn batter into prepared pan, smoothing top with spatula.

Bake until top is light golden brown, slightly firm to the touch, and edges start pulling away from sides of pan. This takes about 25 to 30 minutes. Cool to room temperature on wire rack before transferring to cutting board. Cut into bars and serve.

This will make about 36 4-by-5 cm cookie bars.

IMPORTANT: If you are using a glass or Pyrex pan, the oven heat needs to be 150C.

Apple and Cinnamon Cake

A while ago, I wanted to try a new cake recipe so I searched the net (great place to find ideas), found something that sounded decent enough, changed it around to suit my taste and ingredients that I had on hand (I doubt that I EVER stick to a recipe...) My husband loved it, and he isn't the biggest fan of apple cake.

1.5 cups oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 cups flour
6 small apples, peeled and diced
1 cup each chopped hazelnuts or walnuts and raisins
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp each rum flavor, vanilla flavor, baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 175°C. Prepare either three English cake baking tins (those long thin ones) or a large baking tin.
Mix together the oil, the sugar, the eggs, the flour, cinnamon, salt, rum and vanilla flavor as well as the baking soda. Mix until combined. Add the hazelnuts, raisins and apples and fold under. It will seem to be too dry, but don't worry.
Bake until ready - about 45 minutes if you are using several small baking tins or 75 minutes if you are making it in the large one.

The cake is even better the next day.