My husband comes from a family of excellent cooks. Every family gathering means a feast of just about every food imaginable, but one of my favorite occasions they host each year is Halloween. Matt’s grandparents throw a party, and his grandmother cooks up enough cashew chicken to feed a crowd. I asked for the recipe years ago and was surprised at how simple it really is. So without further ado, here is the perfect cashew chicken!
The first step is to find a cook.
Don’t hate him because he’s beautiful. Hate him because he loves the Pats.
The directions suggest marinating chicken breasts in soy sauce, but ain’t nobody got time for that. So Matt combines steps by adding soy sauce and salt and pepper to two eggs.
Whisk the mixture and add your chicken. We like to use chicken tenderloins cut into bites with kitchen shears. Add the chicken to a bag of flour and corn starch and any seasonings you may like – this time he just used salt and pepper, but he often will add garlic salt and paprika. Shake to coat. (Shake and bake, baby).
While the oil heats, he likes to make the cashew sauce. Bring chicken bouillon, sugar, oyster sauce, and water to a boil.
In a small bowl, mix corn starch with cold water. When smooth, add a bit to the cashew mixture. Cook until it reaches desired thickness.
Cool a bite of the sauce. Taste. Make frowny faces. Declare it good.
Fry the chicken with your preferred method. We are currently using vegetable oil, but I have also used shortening. He cooked these on high heat for about 7 minutes.
Side note: The Food Network taught us to buy one bunch of green onions and to place the bulbs in a jar of water. Voila, you’ll always have green onions growing, and so we do.
When the chicken is fried, serve with rice, green onions, and cashews.
I started eliminating all kinds of unneeded items in my home earlier this year, and I’m still investing time in that process. Yesterday, I was sorting through a stack of forgotten papers and found something I wanted to share. I’m not sure where this paper came from (I recall it first surfacing by falling out of a hand-me-down book that went out of print in the ’80s) or the author, but this writing from a fellow mother of three resonated with me. It also brought back memories of hearing my husband’s grandfather telling him he couldn’t choose a favorite, but if he could, he would choose Matt. Matt didn’t realize until adulthood that Grandpa told every grandchild the same.
I’ve Loved You Best, Because…
Dear First Born,
I’ve always loved you best because you were our first miracle. You were the genesis of a marriage and the fulfillment of young love. You sustained us through the hamburger years, the first apartment (furnished in early poverty), our first mode of transportation (the “Junker”), and the 7-inch tv we paid on for 36 months.
You were new, had un-used grandparents, and enough clothes for a set of triplets. You were the original model for a mom and a dad who were trying to work the bugs out. You got the strained lamb, the open safety pins and three-hour naps.
You were the beginning.
Dear Middle Child,
I’ve always loved you best because you drew a tough spot in the family and it made you stronger for it. You cried less, had more patience, wore faded hand-me-downs, and never in your life did anything first. But it only made you more special.
You were the one we relaxed with and realized a dog could kiss you and you wouldn’t get sick. You could cross a street by yourself long before you were old enough to get married. And you helped us understand the world wouldn’t collapse if you went to bed with dirty feet.
You were the child of our busy, ambitious years. Without you, we never could have survived the job changes and the tedium and routine that is marriage.
To The Baby,
I’ve always loved you best because while endings are generally sad, you are such a joy. You readily accepted the milk-stained bibs, the lower bunk, the cracked baseball bat, the baby book that had nothing written in it except a recipe for graham cracker pie crust that someone had jammed between the pages.
You are the one we hold on to so tightly. You are the link with our past, a reason for tomorrow. You darken our hair, quicken our steps, square our shoulders, restore our vision, and give us a sense of humor that security, maturity, and durability can’t provide.
When your hairline takes on the shape of Lake Huron and your own children tower over you, you will still be our baby.
If you had asked me a few months ago if my family ever ate fish, or sweet potatoes, or even roasted veggies with any type of consistency or enthusiasm, I would have laughed.
My kids would choose macaroni and cheese for every meal if allowed, and my husband, Matt, would eat steak or pork. I am Team Pasta and Dairy. We do consume a large quantity of fruit and chicken, but while the other members of my household adore carrots and eat bags and bags of them weekly (weirdos), we admittedly don’t add many veggies into our diet.
So when a friend asked me if I wanted to try Hello Fresh, I hesitated. What would be the point, really, if we just trashed the meals? There was no way anyone under my roof would consume anything in the sample menu plan I perused.
Nevertheless, I had another friend who raved about her meal subscription services and I was intrigued, so I bit. (Literally! Haha!)
The first box arrived on the doorstep filled with ingredients for three meals, everything divided out and labeled so we knew what to grab when it was time to cook, and recipe cards were included. We began to prep for our first meal: pistachio-crusted chicken with quinoa and chopped cucumber–jalapeno salad. The only thing in that recipe title I knew my crew would eat was chicken, and with a pistachio coating, I wasn’t sure that would even fly (not literally).
I love the packaging and how easy it is to find everything you need!
I followed the step-by-step directions and was surprised at not only how quickly I threw dinner together, but also at the generous portion sizes. I was simultaneously making a pot of mac and cheese for my kids, but we had enough of the chicken and quinoa dinner for everyone.
And, shock of all shocks, every last one of us loved the meal (although I’m anti-jalapeno, so we omitted that ingredient for everyone but Matt). Last week, my daughter asked me if I could make that chicken again, which we tried three months ago.
My son likes to watch me chop tomatillos and squash. I don’t typically consume tomatillos and squash. Who knew such a thing was edible?
And so we continued to subscribe to Hello Fresh and also Blue Apron, skipping weeks when they didn’t suit us for whatever reason. Here’s why we’ve loved the boxes:
1. We were in a major food rut, and it wasn’t always a healthy one. Now, instead of plain old taco Tuesday, we have sesame beef tacos with quick-pickled veggies and spicy crema. Instead of tired steak and fries, we have steak with a mint chive dressing and veggie succotash. It’s like I’ve stepped into an episode of Chopped with some of these titles! We’re cooking with mirin and sesame oil and sweet potatoes and tomatillos, jasmine rice and polenta, and it is delicious.
2. Speaking of health, we are eating better in every way. My husband came home from the store today with a haul of veggies, fruit, couscous, quinoa, farro, fresh herbs, and fish (our kids NEVER ate fish before we tried this – and now we eat it at least once per week and love it). Although udon noodles may be my favorite thing discovered so far and I don’t know if they are super healthy or not.
3. As aforementioned, portion sizes are generous. They are meant for two people, but we usually have enough to feed our crew of four (the baby isn’t into these deliveries just yet). We sometimes stock extra protein to cook just to be sure we have enough for everyone, but that is the only way we have leftovers.
4. I hate meal planning. I hate plotting what to make, what ingredients I need, shopping for ingredients with three kids along for the ride, the entire thing. Meal planning for half of my week (we already have a “fend for yourself” or breakfast for dinner night once per week) is done by opening an app, choosing what looks best, and clicking it. Done-zo.
5. This one was really unexpected: we have saved money. We were eating at restaurants maybe twice per month, and have instead allocated that money to our subscription boxes. Our store trips are much less frequent because again, half of our dinners for the week are already planned for us, and now our purchases are much more streamlined. We have saved all of the recipe cards for meals we have liked and we buy the ingredients we need to recreate them. Because meal planning is now much simpler and fresher, we aren’t making mindless trips for fast food at the last minute or buying filler foods to snack on while we try to figure out what to eat.
6. We are cooking meals together and doing so quickly. Everything has been carefully planned and prepped for us, which saves a lot of time. Who doesn’t want more family time in their busy lives?
7. It’s easy to skip meals using the apps or to cancel altogether. And if I forget? The only downside is that I’ve spent money I didn’t plan on spending. I still receive food!
I’m still actually kind of shocked at how much I have appreciated these services. I didn’t expect for cod with a peach and corn salsa from a delivery box to be one of my favorite meals of the summer – especially considering we had fresh fish and seafood at the beach! – but it was!
Have you tried delivery services such as these? What did you think?
While this is not a sponsored post, I will link you to my referral code for Hello Fresh. It will give you a discount on your first box (under $20 for three meals for two!)
For the past several months, my husband and I have done our best to refrain from spending money. Instead, we’ve been doing our best to rid of unnecessary belongings and we’ve picked up some side work (but more on that later).
Enter Prime Day.
We are Amazon Prime subscribers. We have watched a few series through Amazon video streaming (Justified!) and enjoy Kindle services, and of course the two-day shipping. I have a long Amazon wish list, as do my children and my husband. But since I’m trying to save and not spend, I’ll stick to browsing for items I use regularly or that I’ve been waiting for a good deal to buy.
Here’s what I’m pondering:
Seagate External Hard Drives, because I have a Mac and a PC and only one hard drive, and that’s no bueno:
Papermate Inkjoy Gel Pens, because these are my jam and my kids won’t stop stealing mine:
Prime Pantry Items. My introversion and love for a deal at my doorstep could really be satisfied if I take advantage of the $10 off a $60 pantry purchase. I love this Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day soap (although this link isn’t for Prime Pantry soap – it won’t let me share that for some reason – you should check out Prime Pantry if you haven’t).
Baby Cage, because my baby fell and bloodied his lip right next to me while I tried to write this.
I think that’s all I’ll consider for today, although I would really like this item from my wish list, even though it’s not a prime deal today:
What have you bought or what will you buy on Prime Day?
*Update: I actually bought a desktop fan with USB port for my husband for work, a book for my nephew, and an American Girl mini Addy doll and book for my daughter for her birthday. Now I’ll try to abstain from Amazon purchasing for a while.
I’m writing for the first time in a long while. Also, for the first time ever, I’m writing from my storm shelter alongside my husband and three kids. A tornado has been spotted on the ground in my county.
It appears as though we will make it through this unscathed, but the 1 am jaunt to the basement has highlighted for me a problem I already knew existed.
My house is a wreck. My brain is a wreck. Clutter has taken over in every facet, and I hate it.
As the emergency alerts sounded and we descended the stairs to the basement, we had to do so in single-file fashion because the stairs are lined with boxes of Christmas ornaments that haven’t found a home, piles of school papers, toys, and boxes of outgrown clothing.
I carried my sleeping son as my husband carried one daughter and led the other, and I didn’t really fear the storm. I feared we might not make it through all the junk to our shelter. And that’s pretty embarrassing.
I haven’t written because my brain has been in a similar state as my house. Thoughts of things I want to write swirl through my head but never make it out. Days pass and I accomplish little to nothing on my to-do list. Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if I could remember where I left the list.
It’s ironic that one of the blogs I frequent is called “The Art of Simple” and that I thoroughly appreciated Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” I love their thoughts of only keeping the items that bring you joy, and spending your days intentionally. I just haven’t necessarily applied them to my own life.
I haven’t become an untidy mess intentionally. I am a work-from-home mom, and so boundaries between work and home life are constantly blurred. My office space is rarely used because it is instead a veritable death trap, surrounded by Legos and Shopkins. As of right now, my work is taking over part of the couch and most of the kitchen table. Often overlapping: a deadline on a project, a child to feed and put down for a nap, another who needs assistance in the bathroom, one who needs picked up from school, and laundry about to pass the point of being still acceptable to transfer to the dryer.
A year and a half ago, I was ready to clear out my large stash of baby gear and children’s clothes that were taking over my storage room when I learned I was pregnant. Now I’m almost afraid to rid of them. I keep every paper I’ve ever received but they rarely make it to the file cabinet. My dishes are always piling up because we have too many dishes. The laundry is overflowing because we have five people in the house, but mostly because we each have too many items to wear. I have taken millions of photos and have three (three!) full computers that I can’t even use and I have barely printed a photo of my kids in the past 6.5 years.
In short, our abundances have become burdens. This excess has become excessive.
I got a head start to ridding of what is ailing me this weekend, quickly filling three boxes of unneeded items that I then delivered to a local charity. I cleaned my daughter’s overflowing closet and finally took two sets of dishes I’ve always hated out of my cabinet. I recycled a box of my girls’ drawings (stealthily). I’ve sold a few items online. And I already feel just a bit lighter.
Self-help blogs and books are kind of a love-hate category for me, but writing this caused me to recall a post my friend recently shared in social media. If I were one to physically react to what I read, I would be nodding right now. Read it here:
When we built our house four years ago, a walk-in pantry was near the top of my wish list. In our former house, we had limited storage space coupled with poor organization. I was determined to have a better set-up in my new home.
But while we carved out the required space for our cupboard, we didn’t exactly have a great organization system.
So I hosted a Thirty-One party (and I’m hosting another! See the bottom of this post for the link).
The pantry is still a work in progress, but my favorite part is the embroidered Your Way Cubes I purchased from Thirty-One. I love being able to find whatever I need quickly and to easily identify what I’m running low on, and it looks so cute and neat! I also like that one side has a clear PVC panel in case I would rather see the cube’s contents.
Last night, I emptied the contents of the pantry – I tend to clean by destroying first – and enlisted my girls to help me out with the organization.
They grouped similar products and built towers with their finds, and when we were finished, they found the appropriate storage cube to house everything (except for all of those sauce packets).
I also have embroidered cubes in my laundry room, and I’m planning to add bins to my pantry collection to contain tea & coffee, bread, and my favorite, candy.
If you’d like to see more organization solutions by Thirty-One, or if you need a fun new bag, personalized canvas or pillow, check out my online party or book your own here:
