Low Sodium Cashew Chicken

I wanted to try a recipe from Annie's Eats called Thai Chicken with Cashews.  However, the recipe has soy sauce, which my husband won't touch with a ten-foot pole because of the high salt content, even if it's the lower-sodium version. 

It also calls for red bell pepper.  Our grocery store doesn't sell organic red bell peppers so, because they are on the Dirty Dozen list of foods that contain the most pesticides, I left them out too.

I also left out the salt.

So, after taking out these ingredients, I figured this dish would be just a step up from regular chicken but not very tasty.  I was actually surprised at how delicious it was, even without the soy sauce.  I think I'll be making this often.


Low Sodium Cashew Chicken

Ingredients:

1 bunch scallions
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken (we didn't use this much since it was just the two of us)
Pepper to taste
A few tablespoons of olive oil
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger (or 1 1/2 tsp. dried; but I think using fresh ginger really added a lot of flavor)
1/4 tsp. roasted red pepper flakes (optional)
3/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 cup roasted whole cashews (I put them in a 350 oven for about 5 minutes; if they come salted you could rinse them first to get rid of the extra salt)
Brown rice

Directions
-Begin cooking the brown rice.
-Chop scallions, separating white and green parts.
-Cut the chicken into small pieces and toss with pepper.
-Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat and then add olive oil.
-Stir-fry the chicken until cooked through (5-6 minutes).
 -Add garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, and scallion whites to skillet and stir-fry about 5-6 minutes.
 -Stir together broth, cornstarch, and sugar, then stir it all into the skillet.
-Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 1-2 minutes.
-Stir in cashews and scallion greens.
-Serve with brown rice.

p.s. If there are other vegetables you like to eat with stir-fry I'm sure you could add as many as you like.

Chicken Packets

The recipe I have for these chicken packets originally came, I believe, from "Once a Month Cooking", and calls for refrigerated crescent rolls.  Those are horrible for you though, so I found a recipe for homemade crescent rolls and figured that I would just use whole wheat flour in order to make them healthier.

I followed the recipe for crescent roll dough, halving it, but used half white flour and half whole wheat flour.  I also used butter instead of shortening and sucanat instead of sugar.

After I let the dough rise the first time, I rolled it out and cut it into rectangles instead of circles.

The recipe says to roll the dough into a circle, cut each circle into triangles, roll them up, and then freeze them.  I didn't do that...I just let the dough sit while I prepared the chicken.

I boiled 4 chicken breasts and then shredded them.  Next I added about 3/4 a package of cream cheese.  I started with just 3 ounces but ended up using more.  I also added a few chopped chives.

Here is the chicken mixed up with the cream cheese and the chives:

Next I took a rectangle of dough, rolled it out a bit more, and then put a pile of the chicken mixture on it.

I folded the dough over and pressed the edges together to make a little packet.  I guess I didn't put enough chicken in this one cause I had extra dough, which I trimmed.

Using the 4 chicken breasts, I had enough to make about a dozen packets.  However, I had lots of dough left over - I think I could have fourthed that crescent roll recipe.  Oh well, I just put the extra in the freezer and I can use it to make actual crescent rolls another day.

I baked one of the packets at 350 for 15 minutes so that I could try one right away, and popped the others in the fridge so that we will have a quick meal ready for Sunday after church.

These are fun to eat and I think they would be great for taking to work for lunch.  They can be eaten cold, if you like.

I will note that using whole wheat flour for the crescent rolls sure made them heavier than the light-and-fluffy refrigerated kind you buy in a store.  Also, using sucanat made them not quite sweet enough for my taste.  Perhaps I'll try honey next time.