Pizza!

I finally tried to cook something else. With my hand-crafted pizza peel from Uncle Todd I needed to finally use it. I bought a nice stone and some Calabrese Sausage, red pepper, onion, and a can of tomato sauce. The pizza turned out pretty well!


Ingredients
1.5cups water - barely warm
1pkg yeast
1tsp salt
1tsp sugar
2TBS oil
3.5-4.5cups flour

Directions
Start with 1 cup of flour and the rest, mix, then add 1 more cup, mix, then add more. Keep going till the dough is solid but still kinda sticky,
usually right around 4 cups, sometimes 4.5. Knead for 5min, cover with plastic, let rise 1hr. Cook for 15-20min at 450 degrees.
check it at 10min tho

Cashew Chicken

So here is the cashew chicken, round 2. Lessons learned from round 1 include A) Also make some rice. B) Don't overcook the cashews! C) Don't use too much oil.

Here is the recipe, stolen out of a Stir Fry book my friend's have.

Classic Cashew Chicken ( Serves 2 to 4 )
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast mean
All-Purpose Thai Marinade
1.5 cups matchstick cut carrots
1.5 cups thin asparagus, cut on the diagonal into 1-inch lengths
1 cup raw cashews
1 cup flaborless cooking oil
Essential Vegi Stir-Fry Sauce

Essential Vegi Stir Fry Sauce
1/4 cup vegetable broth
2 TB dry sherry or Chinese rice wine
2 TB thin soy sauce
1 TB dark sesame oil
2 TB cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Advance Preparation: Cut the chicken into very thin slices, about 1.8 inch wide. Cut the slices into one inch matchsticks. Place the chicken in a bowl and add the marinade. Mix well. Combine the carrots and asparagus. Ina a small saucepan, combine the cashews and cooking oil. Place over high heat and sitr. As soon as the nuts turn light golden, drain them in a sieve placed over another saucepan to catch the oil. Allow the nuts to cool to room temperature, then set aside. Reserve 3 TB of cooking oil, and discard the remaining oil. Cover and regrigerate all ingredients except the nuts until 5 minutes before cooking. Can be completed to this point up to 8 hours in advance of last-minute cooking.

Last-Minute Cooking: Review the wok cooking outline on pages 18 and 19. Place a wok over high heat. When the wok is very hot, add 1.5 TB of the reserved cooking oil. When the oil is hot, add the chicken and stir and toss until it is mostly opaque, about 90 seconds. Transfer to a plate and return the wok to high heat. Add the remaining 1.5 TB oil. When it is hot, add the vegetables and stir-fry until softened slightly, about 2 minutes. Pour in the sauce and return the chicken to the wok. Add the cashews and stir and toss until the sauce glazes the food about 1 minute. Transfer to a platter or dinner plates and serve at once.

New Cooking Blog

So here is where I am going to post about stuff I cook - for the amusement of my bored family members and for my own reference. The things I know how to cook currently is a pretty short list, inspired by my recent mildly-succesful attempt at cashew chicken stir-fry. Here is the list:

Cashew Chicken Stir Fry
Tacos
Burritos
Sangria (this counts!)
BBQ Burgers & Brats

Hmm ok the list is shorter than I thought it would be.

-Justin