Cashew Chicken

One night while looking at our pantry, I realized just how many cashews I had around our house, and I knew some of them needed to be eaten up. I remembered that Jenn said her mom used to make a cashew chicken and it was great. While I am more of an almond chicken person myself, I figured it would be worth a try.

After searching my favorite recipe website, Allrecipes.com, I came across a 4.5 star rated recipe for Cashew Chicken. I always like to look for inspiration from a recipe and then adapt it to my own taste. It turned out better than I had expected! It was much more delicious, cheaper, and healthier than any take-out chinese food I have ever had. I would recommend this recipe to anyone for a nice budget chinese food night.

Cashew Chicken
(adapted from Cashew Chicken with Water Chestnuts on allrecipes.com)

Yield 4 servings
Ingredients
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2/3 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast meat - cut into cubes
2 cloves of garlic, minced

4 green onions, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped (can use green bell pepper instead)
1 (8 ounce) can sliced water chestnuts, drained
2/3 cup cashews

Directions
Dissolve the cornstarch in the chicken broth, and stir in the soy sauce, ginger, and hot sauce; set aside. Heat half of the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Stir in the chicken; cook and stir until the chicken is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan, and set aside.
Pour the remaining tablespoon of oil into the pan, and stir in the onion, garlic, bell pepper, and water chestnuts. Cook and stir until the chestnuts are hot, about 5 minutes more. Stir up the sauce to redistribute the cornstarch, then pour into the pan, and bring to a boil. Add the reserved chicken, and stir until the sauce thickens, and the chicken is hot. Sprinkle with cashews to serve.

Oh, and we can't forget about dessert! :)