Green Beans with Sticky Soy Cashews

I don't know about you, but I am pretty excited for spring & summer to hurry up and get here. I love the long days, the warmer weather, the sunshine and best of all, I love the spring and summer produce that comes with the warm weather. Around here we also get some pretty awesome farmers markets such as the White Rock Farmers Market. It hasn't started up yet, but it will probably start up some time in May and I can't wait!! The reasons I'm talking about spring, summer and farmer's markets is because you can find such great produce there. My favorite produce is fresh green beans. I absolutely love them! You can do so many things with them and they never fail to make me feel like its spring/summer time. I made these green beans with sticky soy cashews a few weeks ago and they were absolutely delicious. You simply must try out the recipe! Green Beans with Sticky Soy Cashews Recipe from Meals in Heels by Jennifer Joyce

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp sesame oil


• 80g (1/2 cup) unsalted cashews, roasted


• 1 tbsp honey


• 1 tbsp soy sauce


• 300 g green beans, trimmed


• 1 tsp black or white sesame seeds, toasted

Method:

1. Heat half of the oil in a frying pan over high heat. Add the cashews, honey and soy sauce and toss for 30 seconds or until all the liquid has evaporated. Pour onto a baking tray to cool.


2. Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil, add the green beans and cook for 2 minutes. Drain and refresh in cold water. Drain again and pat dry with a tea towel.


3. Heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the green beans and over medium heat. Add the green beans and warm through. Add the sesame seeds and sticky cashews to the pan and mix through.

Pretty easy huh? I hope you enjoy these as much as we did! Spring & Summer are just around the corner and these green beans will make you feel like they're already here.

Happy Cooking my Friends!

Mongolian Beef!

Hi Everyone! Sorry I just disappeared for about a week - I had the opportunity to go to the Okanagan with a lovely friend and hang out at a resort for the week. Definitely couldn't pass up on that one! I'm back now and have so many things to share with you. This post is not impressive and the quality of the photos is definitely lacking, but I must share this recipe with you because it tasted so fantastic.

This recipe was adapted from Fresh Food Fast which was put out by the folks at Cooking Light. The one thing I LOVE about this cookbook is the fact that every single recipe has nutritional information, very few ingredients and takes very little time to prepare. The only downside is that some of the recipes tend to use a bit of packaged food. The packaged food part can definitely be overcome though by purchasing the raw ingredients and taking a little extra time to do the chopping and other prep work at home. This can also save you money too since packaged and pre-chopped items tend to cost a bit more!

Mongolian Beef (adapted from Fresh Food Fast)

• 1 lb flank steak, trimmed and cut into thin slices
• cooking spray
• 1/3 cup hoisin sauce
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 tsp minced fresh ginger
• 1 tsp minced garlic (you can use roasted garlic instead)
• 2 tsp dark sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 green onion chopped
• 1 small package snow peas, trimmed and cut in half

1. Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Coat beef with cooking spray. Cook steak about 3 minutes or until browned and liquid has almost evaporated. Stir occasionally.
2. While steak cooks, combine hoisin sauce and next five ingredients in a small bowl. Dice the onions and trim the snow peas. Add sauce, onions and snow peas to the pan. Stir well to coat everything in the sauce.
3. Cook 2-3 minutes until the sauce is slightly reduced, everything is heated and coated with the sauce. Makes 4 half cup servings.

I hope you enjoy the recipe. Here is a photo of what my dish looked like when it was finished in the pan. Not exactly presented nicely, but the flavours are sooooo nice. Let me know what you think of the recipe!