Adopted Family Dinner

As some of you know, I have been living in Maryland this summer with my dad’s friend from college’s family (sorry if that is confusing). As this is my last week staying with them, I decided to cook them a big thank-you dinner last night. I was a little nervous, seeing as I haven’t cooked for a large group of people in a pretty long time and I really wanted to make sure that they enjoyed it! So I took my whole lunch break yesterday to scour the internet looking for some good summer recipes. I soon found out that searching for "summer dinner recipes" is a pretty general term. At first I thought salad, and then I thought tuna, but when I saw a recipe for Chicken and Cashews in Lettuce wraps at http://www.blogger.com/www.realsimple.com, I knew I had found my main course. They turned out to be delicious and super easy!

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into ¾-inch pieces

Pepper

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon grated giner

1 bunch scallions, trimmed and sliced

1 8-ounce can sliced water chestnuts, drained

¼ cup roasted unsalted cashews

1 small head Boston or Bibb lettuce, leaves separated

Directions:

Combine the soy sauce and honey in a small bowl; set aside.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with ½ teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to brown, about 3 minutes.

Lower heat to medium and stir in the garlic and ginger. Add the scallions and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the water chestnuts and half the soy sauce mixture and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and sprinkle with the cashews.

Divide the lettuce leaves among individual plates and spoon the chicken over the top. Serve with the remaining soy sauce mixture for drizzling.

My side note: For vegetarians, I think it would be super easy to re-create this with tofu and it wouldn’t even take you as long to cook!

For a side dish I wanted to make veggies! And I knew just the place to turn, my favorite health blogger (a vegan Canadian) Oh She Glows. She had just the perfect veggie recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cooked potatoes

2 bell peppers

1 zucchini

3 carrots

½ broccoli

3 tablespoon sunflower seeds

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper

Dried parsley

Italian seasoning

Directions: Chop all veggies. Place into a large bowl and toss with seasonings and EVOO. Pour onto baking sheet and roast in the over for about 35-40 minutes at 425F. Serve and enjoy!

My side note: You can add and subtract depending on your favorite veggies! I also added some additional spices that I found in their cabinet, the more color I say the better!

And I couldn’t forget dessert! I know the family (and me!) love fruit in dessert so I decided to make some strawberries dipped in melted chocolate and cooled in the fridge. Turns out this is one of their favorites so I definitely got some bonus points here!

Overall I think we had a great meal! I want to say another thank-you to the Perini’s for hosting me all summer long!

It is my distance day for the week and I am trying to go eight miles! I’ll let you know how it goes- happy Wednesday!

-Shelby