Cashew Chicken

Last summer, we had really good cashew chicken from Panda Express (which you are more than welcome to judge me for if you feel so compelled, but I like what I like. And you are probably a food snob). I decided that it couldn't possibly be too difficult to duplicate at home. Wrong-ish. The sauce copycat recipes I found online all sucked (hoisin sauce...disgusting) so I decided to just use some bottled sauce. And it turned out to be really, really good.

So here's my thoroughly modified version of Panda's cashew chicken:

Ingredients
1 pound of chicken breasts
2-3 red, yellow or orange bell peppers (I use a combination)
1 large white onion
3-4 stalks of celery
1 can of sliced water chestnuts
1 bunch of cilantro (my clump of leaves are about the size of both of my fists together, so kind of a lot)
4-6 green onion stalks (to taste)
1 cup (or less) of cashews or cashew pieces
1 clove garlic, minced

Directions
(If you're having rice, start that now.)

• Cut the chicken into half-inch cubes (or bigger, they just take longer to cook). Heat some vegetable oil in a pan on the stovetop and cook the chicken.

• Chop your vegetables. I cut the peppers and onions into squares. Onions are easiest to cut into squares if you 1) cut off both ends, 2) set it on one of the now-flat ends, 3) make three slices through the onion, from 12 to 6, 2 to 8 and 10 to 4 (like a clock), 4) lay each half on its flat side without separating the pieces and cut that in half.

• Heat some veggie oil in your largest pan and add the white onion, pepper, celery and water chestnuts. Stir-fry on high heat.
  

• Once veggies are cooked but still crisp, back off the heat and add chopped cilantro, chopped green onion, chicken and minced garlic. Mix it all up and heat through.
  

• Add sauce to taste and serve over rice.
  

This also makes a killer leftover lunch. Which is exactly what inspired me to share the recipe.