Cashew Chicken

I've been hungry for cashew chicken since we returned from Florida. The cashew chicken available here is all cashews and chicken, and I like the version available in Port Charlotte that has plenty of vegetables in it.  So I made my  own for supper tonight.

Ingredient list:

• One chicken breast, cut into smallish cubes, dusted with flour and seasoned with salt. (Chicken thighs would work fine, too.)
• celery, sweet onion, green onion and 2 or 3 garlic cloves
• baby bella mushrooms, snow peas and about 1/3 cup of cashew bits and pieces
• five spice seasoning (if you have it), stir fry sauce, soy sauce and some cooking oil (I used olive oil -- I know, I know.)

Stir fry the floured chicken cubes in the oil over medium high heat, (corn starch would be more authentic) until they're mostly done.  Set aside on a plate, then stir fry the vegetables in the order listed in the same pan.  Season as you go along.  Add back the chicken, lower the heat and cover for a few minutes until the vegetables are at your preferred level of crispness.  We had it with some left over brown rice.  Serves two with a lunch serving left over.  Yummy.

Low Carb Lunch

Sometimes my diet veers off course and I need to re-focus my efforts. And sometimes I think my metabolism changes. In either case, today I worked at getting a lot of healthy bulk into my lunch, in the form of fresh vegetable soup. I paired it with a wrap instead of a sandwich, making it a lower carb version of one of our favorite lunches.

It is the same soup that I've shown here before, for the most part.  I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned, skipped the flour step and used whatever vegetables were in my refrigerator.

I added them to the pot in their order of density -- celery, carrot, onion, garlic, mushroom, tomato and corn.

When the carrots had lost their crispness, I added about half a carton of veggie broth and an equal amount of water, and let it simmer for 20 minutes to a half hour.  I used my favorite spices, including a half teaspoon of cumin, just for fun.  The bay leaf goes in last, and comes out first.  (You don't ever want to eat one of those.)  It made about 6 generous servings. The wrap has just 10 carbs, 4 of them fiber, and 50 calories.  It's an oat and multi grain mini wrap, but there are lots of different wraps out there.  This was actually a tortilla, and I heated it on my grill pan before adding ham and lettuce and tomato.  Some chopped cucumber or avocado would have been good on it, too.