Cashew Chicken Or How I Learned That I Can Really Cook

In keeping with new year and new things, I'm definitely making more of an attempt to eat healthy and cook proper dinners. Awhile back I posted smoothie recipes on here and that was also when I was trying my hand at a fit lifestyle. I realized then, I need food. Don't get me wrong, juicing and smoothies are wonderful, but I can't live off fruits and veg alone! I need more and I need it to taste good! So the other day I took a good hard look at all my pinterest boards and made a real grocery list and planned out a couple meals.

Without further ado, here is Homemade Cashew Chicken. All credit for the recipe goes to blog The Art Of Doing Stuff, thanks!!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Large Chicken Breasts

• 1 Tbsp Cornstarch
• 6 Small Garlic Cloves (minced)
• 8 Green Onions
• 1/4 Cup Hoisin Sauce
• 1/4 Cup Rice Vinegar (unseasoned)
• 1/4 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Cashews (toasted over medium/low heat in pan)
• 1 Can of Mandarin Oranges or 1 Sumo Orange (optional)
• Salt & Pepper
• Olive Oil
• However Much Rice You Need, i.e: One Half Cup Per Person

To begin, I would chop everything (onions, oranges, chicken, garlic) and start your rice cooking. There was a lot more chopping than I was used to and I honestly extra toasted my cashews. They were still delicious, but a bit blackened :(. Separate your white parts from the green parts on the onions and chop all into about 1/2" to 1" pieces. Chop your orange segments in half. Cube your chicken. Mince that garlic!

Once you've cubed your chicken, go ahead and put it in a tupperware or plastic bag with the cornstarch, salt & pepper. Shake it up! Set aside. 

Then take the white part of your onions and garlic and begin to saute in the olive oil for a few minutes before adding your chicken. Fry the chicken for about 5 minutes or so, until all traces of pink are gone.

On medium high heat, add the rice vinegar and cook until it is evaporated. Then add Hoisin sauce and water. Stir in cashews as well. Remove from heat once sauce is thoroughly covering all and add in the green parts of the onion. Give that a quick stir and then serve on a bed of rice. Top with mandarin oranges and ENJOY! 

This was delicious and I was super proud of myself for adulting so well. Make this for yourself! Make it for your friends! You'll thank me! :)

Keep on, Keepin' on y'all!

M.

Homemade Tortilla Chips & Guac!

Recipe corner!!!

It's Memorial Day weekend y'all and the true kick off to summer BBQ's and parties. What better time then now to share my best guacamole recipe with you and also the tale of how I made my own tortilla chips, which was a slight fail but still a tasty one!

 I made enough guacamole for one person, maybe two people, you can double or triple this recipe easily to tailor to your needs.

INGREDIENTS:

2 ripe avocados
Tomato, diced....I only had cherry tomatoes on hand so I used a handful and quartered them.
One clove of garlic, smashed and diced.
A quarter of a white onion....you can use any onion or amount you'd like, it is purely for taste and crunch.
Salt & Pepper, generously
Cumin, also generously
Chili powder, you guessed it...generously :)
A shot or two of lime juice

Mix well together and let sit while making your chips so that it can ~meld~

I started taking photos after I had cut my tortillas, but basically you take either flour or corn tortilla rounds and using a knife, or like I have a pizza cutter, cut equally into 4 pie pieces. I had larger tortillas so I ended up cutting my pie pieces into smaller triangles and some rectangles....no one's perfect haha. Then you take your soon to be chips and you drizzle oil (any sort, I used olive oil but I may use coconut next time based on the final product) on them and then mix the chips around to coat them. Next I lay them out onto a foiled baking sheet and sprinkled cumin, salt and chili powder on top of them.

Preheat your oven to 400 and  put those chips in for....OK so the original recipe I used said to put the chips in for 5 minutes and keep an eye on them. I ended up leaving these chips in for about 10-12 minutes before I thought they had reached proper golden brown color and desired crispness. I don't know if my oven is a bit wonky, or I used the wrong oil or what but my chips were less chip like and more pita chip like. Which isn't bad but when you are expecting one thing and you get another it's a little off I guess. Either way, keep an eye on your chips! And test your guacamole during this waiting game ;)

Finished chip shot! These weren't as crispy as I had hoped, but next time I may switch out flour for corn tortillas and olive oil for coconut and update the progress. The guacamole was excellent and I would 20 out of 10 make it again, plus it was 100% my own mixing :)

Have a Happy Memorial Day everyone!!

Keep on, Keepin' on!

M.

DIY Antlers and Now Floral Necklace Tutorial PART 3 :)

Welcome back! This part of the tutorial is very optional. If you made the antlers and want to be done there, that's totally cool. I'm going for some drama so I added huge flowers!

STEP ELEVEN:

Cover your headband in a ribbon or fabric so the glue can better stick to it.

STEP TWELVE:

Plan out what flowers to use before attatching them. Add embellishments is so desired.

The beige flower had those same middle bits as the blue, but I had to cut them out to get the skull to properly fit.

STEP THIRTEEN:

Attach you flowers! Figure out your pattern and make it your own :)

And done! Also I realized that unfortunately the antlers and the frog piece I made earlier no longer fit together on my head. So now I at least have options during the night to switch out my "crowns". It really works out too since my antlers dried a bit wonky and stopped fitting through our doorways :/
So they are outside antlers now.

True to form I wanted more! I wanted to maybe make a floral crown to wear with my frog piece.....That did not work out. Instead it became a floral statement necklace and honestly that's fine. I was over extending on this costume and I needed to be done with it to move on to other home decorating!

STEP ONE:

Cover your base in tape, I also glued on leaves to cover the tape.

STEP TWO:

Have your baby skunk help you pick out your flowers :)

STEP THREE:

Make your arrangement, glue it on and that's it!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Come back for more Halloween themed shenanigans soon!

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.

DIY Antlers PART 2

Hello again friends! Here is part two of perhaps a part three or four series. Doing so many parts because realistically that's how many days this is happening over :)

Ok, there's the continuation of the Antler Saga:

STEP SEVEN:

After you have let your paper maiche layers (2) dry completely you can begin the texturing and painting.

Ok, So what I did there is use hot glue to build a little base on my antlers. Just like real ones, they need that rough looking bit at the bottom. Then I made little bumps and continued up the antlers with lines of hot glue. It makes the antlers look rough and works for when you paint layers.

STEP EIGHT:

Paint the first layer of color. I used peach because I had it, but you can use whatever colors you'd like.

Let that dry. Paint on a second coat to cover any dark areas of newspaper.

STEP NINE:

Mix up a darker color, I used an avacado green and black. Paint that over the antlers and at the bottom, rub it off on your texture bits so it shows through. On real antlers there's this type of gradient.

Like at the base of these.

This is my interpretation:

STEP TEN: 

Paint a second layer of the dark color on the antlers, making sure to cover patches of light. Don't repaint over the rubbed off texture parts though. 

Then let the antlers completely dry overnight and wonder if you should paint more, source answers from friends and plan out your floral attatchments.

Stay tuned for PART 3 (and maybe FOUR :))

Keep on, keepin on, 

M.

When did November Get Here??

It's November and finally we get a break in the heat! Current temp outside is a breezy 54 degrees!

This has been one of the best Halloween months on record. Between Haunted Hike, our 2nd Annual Halloween party and all our gatherings with friends have been really fun and wonderful. We are already planning out our props and costumes for next year, I'm pretty excited.

On the front burner is Thanksgiving. Why yes folks, there is in fact a holiday between Halloween and Christmas :) We are having a "Friendsgiving" this year and with all the traditional food, I always like to slip in a new recipe. Haven't found the right one, but I'm pinteresting for sure.

On the other front burner is how I can organize my space! We moved here in May and I have A LOT of things still waiting to be unpacked. This could just be an eye opener on what I could purge right out of my life seeing as how I haven't used/looked at these items in 5 months...BUT I know myself and that self is saying oh you know one day I'll need this. Spoiler: I won't.

But that's what's on deck for my Sunday.

Glad I woke up early and gave myself the challenge of writing to you, the internet. Being slightly proud :)

Keep on, keepin' on,

M.