Roasted Cashew-Covered Broccoli

Occasionally, I'll take the time to cook something really involved and complicated (wait til you see my chicken mole recipe) but most of the time, I'm looking for quick and easy (oh, and delicious, of course) recipes that require little to no expertise in the kitchen.  I found this recipe on The Paleo Project.  I made it twice this past week alone.

Equipment you'll need:

bowl of ice water (big enough to fit all broccoli)

colander

fine grater (I can't wait until my mom ships me my microplane!)

small pot of water (big enough to fit all broccoli)

small mixing bowl

Ingredients:

3 stalks broccoli, cut into florets (I've started using 4 because I find the flavors in this dish can carry more than 3 stalks)

1 cup cashews

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

1 tbs grated ginger root (probably the hardest part of the whole recipe)

garlic salt*

pepper and sea salt*

*since no measurement was given for either of these ingredients, I assume that you're supposed to add less than a 1/2 tsp of each

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Bring a small pot of water (unsalted) to a boil; add broccoli and set a timer for 4 minutes (make sure all broccoli is submerged - stir it around if you have to)

3. Drain broccoli and put directly into bowl of ice water (I put the colander on top of the broccoli to make sure all of it gets submerged).  Set aside.

4. Chop or process cashews (love my mini food processor!); cover baking sheet in aluminum foil.

5. Mix coconut oil, ginger, garlic salt, sea salt and pepper in a small bowl.

6. Drain broccoli and spread onto baking sheet; drizzle oil mixture onto broccoli and toss to coat.

7. Sprinkle cashews over broccoli*; toss to coat again (if necessary)

8. Bake until cashews turn golden brown (start with 20 minutes and go from there)

*there will be a lot of cashews piled up in between the pieces of broccoli; I simply spread these out or pick them up and sprinkle them on the broccoli directly

This recipe is deceptively simple for the flavor punch it packs.  It's like the paleo version of Lays potato chips: it's impossible to eat just one!  And just to prove to you how foolproof this recipes is, I have a story for you.  The other night I made this broccoli in the oven.  As soon as it was finished, I turned off the oven, but left the broccoli in there while I finished pan-frying some pork (more on that later).  Once that was done, I turned on the oven to 390 to bake some strawberry muffins.  As you may have guessed, I started hearing a lot of sizzling coming from the oven while it was preheating.  I rushed over and took the broccoli out.  The tips of the broccoli were certainly browner, as were the cashews.  I was worried that it would taste dried out, but the crunchiness of the broccoli was amazing!  And the cashews were more deep-roasted than burnt.  Yum!