Cashew Chicken and Broccoli

Wow - this was a crowd pleaser! Everyone, even the J, liked it. In fact, he had thirds (broccoli carefully avoided, of course). Mom liked that it didn't have mushrooms. (Although that would make a fine addition!) I think brown rice makes for a heartier meal so we prefer that but naturally you can use whatever you like. And I served this with glazed carrots which was a perfect addition.

Bonus for the first person who can tell me what's wrong with this picture:

Cashew Chicken and Broccoli

5 Tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp sesame oil

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed

1 1/4 C chicken broth, divided

3 tsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

3 C broccoli florets

2 green onions, sliced

1 C cashews

Hot cooked brown rice

In a large bowl combine the soy sauce, ginger, sugar, and sesame oil. Stir in the chicken until coated; let stand 15 minutes to marinate.

Set aside 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Pour remaining chicken broth in a smallish bowl and stir in the cornstarch; set aside.

In a large skillet, heat oil over high heat. Remove chicken from marinade and add to heated oil in skillet; reserve remaining marinade. Cook chicken about 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently, until no longer pink in center. Stir in broccoli and 1/2 cup chicken broth. (If you were going to add mushrooms this would be the time to do it.) Cover and cook 1 minute or until broccoli is crisp-tender. Stir in green onions and cashews.

Add reserved marinade to cornstarch mixture. Stir into chicken mixture; cook and stir 1-2 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly. Serve over rice.

Altered from a recipe from Pillsbury.

Quinoa Salad With Apples and Walnuts

Quinoa (say Keen-Wa) is high in fiber, a good source of iron, and has all eight essential amino acids. Whole grain Quinoa is the most nutritious of all grains. It has a delicate nutty flavor and is very easy to prepare. ---That was from the front of the Quinoa package---
Cooking Quinoa is about the same as cooking rice - 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water, simmer for about 20-25 minutes.

2 cups apple juice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup quinoa
1 - 6 oz. cup of plain or vanilla yogurt (2/3 cup)
3 tablespoons honey
1 large apple, chopped
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup raisins or craisins

In medium saucepan, bring apple juice and cinnamon to a boil. Add quinoa. Reduce to simmer and cook 20-25 minutes or until juice is absorbed. Remove and cool. In medium bowl, combine yogurt and honey until blended well. Stir in apples, walnuts and raisins/craisins. Add cooled quinoa to yogurt mixture and chill in refrigerator.

We made this with craisins but I imagine dried blueberry's would be good too. We also used finely chopped walnuts hoping Jeff wouldn't notice them ;)
I'm on a mission to find apple juice that doesn't come from China! If it says "distributed by" but not where the food was produced I don't want to buy it. I want good American food for my family. Check the labels especially on apple juice which mostly comes from China now :-(

Sweet Banana-Caramel Crepes

These are absolutely divine! They look like a lot of work, but everything acutally comes together really fast... the crepes themselves do take a while just because you have to cook them one at a time.

Sweet Banana-Caramel Crepes
Cocoa Crepes
2 ¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking powder
3 cups milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
3 eggs
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla

Banana Filling½ cup butter
¼ cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
5 large bananas, thinly sliced

Caramel Topping
1 ½ tablespoons butter
1 ½ tablespoons heavy whipping cream
¼ cup brown sugar, packed
½ tablespoons light corn syrup

whipped topping

Make the caramel sauce the night before: Stir in all ingredients for caramel sauce in a small saucepan. Place over medium heat and bring just to a boil, then remove from heat.

In mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. Beat in wet ingredients until batter is smooth.
Pour a little over ¼ cup batter onto a non-stick 10 inch skillet and quickly swirl batter until it covers the base of the skillet. Cook until bubbly. Flip crepe and cook until reverse side is light brown.
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, melt butter and sugar over medium heat until butter is melted and sugar is nearly dissolved. Remove from heat and add bananas. Microwave caramel sauce if you made it the night before. Fill crepes with desired amount of filling, roll and top with caramel sauce and a dollop of whipped topping.

Egyptian Koshari

This is not in honor of Egypt's current protests... it's just been on my menu for 3 weeks so I finally made it and we liked it. Ava really enjoyed the lentils in this one. :) Plus, it's a cheap dinner!

Egyptian Koshari

3/4 cup brown lentils
3 cups water
1 cup uncooked long grain rice
1 cup elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 (15.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper to taste


1.Cook rice on stove or in rice cooker. Combine the lentils and water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer over medium heat for 25 minutes. Drain off any excess liquid. Add the rice to the lentils.
2.Fill a separate saucepan with lightly salted water and bring to a boil. Add the macaroni and cook until al dente. Drain.
3.Meanwhile, heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook and stir until onion is browned. Pour in the tomatoes and season with red pepper flakes, cumin, salt and pepper. Simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Puree sauce in blender
4.In a large serving dish, stir together the lentils, rice and macaroni. Mix in the pureed tomato sauce until evenly coated.

Orange Rolls

Did I mention that I like orange? Perhaps I have orange on my mind because it's winter and oranges are one of the fruits aplenty right now. Anyway, I decided to combine the best parts of three different orange roll recipes I had and this is the delicious result.

I've never seen yeast dough mixed in quite the same way as it is in this recipe, but it works and the rolls turn out really soft and delish. You can make 12 humongous rolls or 24 smaller ones. (or whatever number in between that you want). If you do as many as 24 rolls, you may want to double the filling and glaze ingredients, depending on how gooey you want them to turn out. If you do 24, split the dough in half and roll it out in 2 batches. You can also refrigerate the dough overnight after the first rise time and make the rolls in the morning.
For the orange zest a microplane grater works best. I'm not a fan of orange marmaladesque chunks of peel. Bleh. But if you don't have one, just grate it lightly.
The dough can also be used to make super delish cinnamon rolls. (Hmm... How many times have I said some form of delicious in this post?) I'll include the filling amounts for that at the end.

Orange Rolls
3/4 c. warm water
2 T. yeast
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
4 c. flour

Orange Filling
1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar
grated rind of 1 orange

Glaze
1 c. powdered sugar
2 T. orange juice
orange zest, optional

Combine the yeast and water and part of the sugar; set aside. In your mixing bowl, beat the eggs, butter, salt and sugar until fluffy. Mix in 2 c. flour. Add the yeast mixture. Slowly add the remaining flour, mixing/kneading well after each addition. You want the dough to stay really soft so don't add too much flour. Once you've added the 4 cups of flour, touch the dough. If it's still sticks to your finger, add a little bit more flour (just like a tablespoon or two at a time) and then check it again. Keep doing this just until the dough doesn't stick to your finger.
Place the dough in a greased bowl and let it rise until doubled, about an hour. When the dough is just about done rising, make the orange filling by combining all of the ingredients for it. Make sure the butter is super soft - not quite melted, but really easy to spread. Roll dough out into a rectangle and spread with orange filling mixture. Roll up jelly roll style and cut into slices with dental floss. You can make them as thin or thick as you want, depending on how big you want them.
Place the rolls on a greased cookie sheet, or in muffin tins. Cover and let rise until doubled. Bake at 350 for about 9-10 minutes.
Leave the rolls on the pan and mix up the glaze ingredients. Pour over the rolls while still warm. Try not to eat them all in one sitting.

Cinnamon Filling:
1/2 c. butter, super soft
3/4 c. sugar
2 T. cinnamon
Spread the butter, mix the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle onto dough.


Dough recipe slightly altered from Deni Berger
Filling recipe from Bonnie Snelson
Glaze recipe from Jennifer McCoy

Double Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake

I was watching an episode of Good Eats last night and it was all about chocolate, so I thought of this cake. I've had this recipe for a long time, too, but again - it's too good not to share! I don't have a picture of it, but next time I make it, I'll be sure to add one. This is super rich, decadent, chocolate heaven. Ya gotta try it!

You're in luck! I have a picture of it already... it doesn't look as nice as it would if you had made it because, well, you're much better at baking than I, but it works until you can make it and replace the picture. :) I didn't have pecans so I put toffee bits on top and that was quite tasty too!:)



Double Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake

Cake:
1 C. butter or margarine
1/4 C. unsweetened cocoa
1 C. water
1/2 C. buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
2 C. sugar
2 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
Chocolate Ganache
Praline Frosting

Grease bottoms of 3 (8-inch) round cake pans; line with wax or parchment paper. Grease and flour wax paper and sides of pans. Cook first 3 ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until butter melts and mixture is smooth; remove from heat. Cool.
Beat buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Add butter mixture to buttermilk mixture, beating until blended.
Combine sugar, flour and salt; gradually add to buttermilk mixture, beating until blended. (Batter will be thin.) Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20-22 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans; immediately remove wax paper. Cool completely on wire racks. (Layers will appear thin)
Spread about 1/2 cup ganache between cake layers; spread remainder on sides of cake. Do not frost top of cake. Chill cake for about 30 minutes. While cake is chilling, prepare praline frosting. Immediately pour praline frosting slowly over top of cake, spreading to edges, and allowing some frosting to run over sides of cake.

Chocolate Ganache

2 C. (12 oz.) semisweet chocolate morsels
1/3 C. whipping cream
1/4 C. butter or margarine, cut into pieces

Microwave chocolate and cream in a glass bowl on MEDIUM (50%) power 2 to 3 minutes or until morsels are melted, stirring after 1 1/2 minutes; whisk until smooth. Gradually add butter, whisking until smooth. Cool, whisking often, about 25 minutes or until spreading consistency. Yield: about 2 cups

Praline Frosting:
Don't prepare this candy-like frosting ahead because it'll harden very quickly.

1/4 C. butter or margarine
1 C. firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 C. whipping cream
1 C. powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C. chopped pecans, toasted

Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, stirring often; boil 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat, and whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add toasted pecans, stirring gently 3 to 5 minutes or until frosting begins to cool and thicken slightly. Pour frosting immediately over cake. Yield: about 2 cups

Panettone French Toast

This is my favorite French toast recipe. I LOVE it. It's in one of my cookbooks, but for some reason every time I go to make it, I think that I've got a print out of it, and then I look for it on my computer, and then finally I remember it's in this cookbook, Brunch, by Louise Pickford. So I'm just going to post it and print it and....problem solved, I think? Besides, it's too good not to share. I confess, I've never actually made it using Panettone bread....it's expensive and hard to find! But maybe someday I will. I just use Italian bread and it's divine. And if you cut your bread at a diagonal and then flip one side over, you can make a little heart.....awwwwww. Hello, Valentine's day breakfast! And of course it's deeeeelish with fresh (or in this picture, frozen) berries. Mmmm....mmm.

Panettone French Toast

1/2 vanilla bean (or 1 tsp vanilla)
2/3 C. canned coconut milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cardamom (optional)
4 Tbsp butter
8 slices panettone or other sweet bread
For Serving: (optional)
confectioner's sugar, for dusting
blueberries or blackberries
whipped cream

Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out he seeds. Put the coconut milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla seeds, and cardamom in a bowl and beat well. Pour the mixture into a shallow dish.
Heat your griddle or skillet to 375 degrees. Use some of the butter to grease the skillet or griddle. Dip bread slices into the egg mixture and cook on hot griddle until golden on both sides. Repeat with the remaining slices and serve dusted with confectioners' sugar and topped with berries and cream.

Coleslaw Dressing

This is an easy coleslaw dressing, much better than the "store bought" kind.

1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt

Mix in a large bowl. Add chopped cabbage (1 small head or a package of coleslaw mix of cabbage, purple cabbage and carrots).
Perfect to serve on top of Bar-B-Que beef or pulled pork sandwiches.

Asparagus with Maple-Mustard Sauce

We really liked this - even Jeremy liked it a lot and he doesn't usually love asparagus.

Asparagus with Maple-Mustard Sauce
2 lb asparagus
2 tablespoons real maple syrup or maple-flavored syrup
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Snap off tough ends of asparagus spears. In 12-inch skillet, heat 1 inch water to boiling. Add asparagus. Heat to boiling; reduce heat to medium. Cook 4 to 5 minutes or until asparagus is crisp-tender; drain.
2. In small bowl, mix maple syrup, mustard and oil. Drizzle over asparagus.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

Yet another pumpkin muffin recipe.  I think it's kind of like banana bread - there are so many varieties out there that you can always be trying a new one.  We all (including my kids) loved this one.  I really like the subtle orange flavor.  (I'm kind of a sucker for that).  The original recipe said to use wheat flour but I decided I actually wanted my family to eat these so I thought the wheat germ was enough so I used white flour instead.   I also did half wheat germ and half ground flax seed.  They bake up nice and big too.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

1/4 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. packed brown sugar
2/3 c. cooked or canned pumpkin
1/2 c. sour milk (1/2 T. lemon juice + enough milk to make 1/2 c.)
2 eggs
2 T. molasses
1 tsp. finely grated orange peel
2 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. wheat germ (can do half or all ground flax seed too)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp. salt

Streusel Topping:
1/3 c. flour
3 T. brown sugar
2 T. cold butter

Cream the butter and sugars.  Add pumpkin, milk, eggs, molasses and orange peel; mix well.  Combine dry ingredients and add to pumpkin mixture.  Coat muffin tins with oil spray and fill. 
For topping combine flour and sugar, then cut in butter until crumbly.  (This works great in a food processor or with a mini food chopper!)  Sprinkle over batter.  Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Yield: 12-15 muffins.

Adapted from Quick Cooking.

Garlic-Herb Braid

Jeremy has informed me that I should never make another bread again and that this is the best bread he's ever had... I agree that it is pretty darn good! It's really moist and flavorful.


Garlic-Herb Braid

4 to 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons yeast
2 teaspoons dried basil
1-3/4 teaspoons dill weed
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
3/4 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 egg
1 tablespoon butter, melted

In a large bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups flour, sugar, yeast and seasonings. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, water and cubed butter to 120°-130°. Add to dry ingredients; beat just until moistened. Add egg; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough (add just enough so that the dough doesn't stick to your hands, but be careful to not add any more).
Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 4-6 minutes. Cover and let rise for 10 minutes.
Divide dough into thirds. Shape each into a 15-in. rope. Place ropes on a greased baking sheet and braid; pinch ends to seal and tuck under.
Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Brush with melted butter. Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool. Yield: 1 loaf (16 slices).

From Simple and Delicious