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| Moroccan Chicken & Butternut Squash Soup |
“Cooking Light” magazine has become one of my favorite resources for new recipes. I really didn’t know the magazine existed until I stayed at my aunt and uncle’s cabin up north last summer. My aunt had some old “Cooking Light” magazines laying around and I picked one up. I immediately began dog-earring the pages to mark recipes I wanted to make. There were so many recipes, my aunt told me to keep the magazine! I decided when I got home I had to get my own subscription.
“Cooking Light” has just the type of recipes I like to make: healthy, low-calorie, low-fat, lots of veggies and protein and also, most importantly, delicious! This photo shows my typical magazine. I have a pad of post-its next to me that I label and mark each recipe I want to try as I read. This makes it easy to see what recipes I have marked and to find which magazine a particular recipe was in.
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| Warm Coconut Rice Pudding |
Most recently I tried two new recipes from the January/February 2012 issue. Moroccan Chicken and Butternut Squash Soup and Warm Coconut Rice Pudding. I have a tendency to stick with American or Italian cuisines, but I want to try and make more ethnic and exotic dishes. Expand our palates. This soup definitely did that. It has a wonderful blend of spices and flavors. The orange rind gives it such a brightness. It’s also so healthy, combining colorful produce with flavorful chicken. I don’t know as if I have ever cooked a Moroccan dish before, I think I will again!
The other recipe I tried was Warm Coconut Rice Pudding. I’ve written a blog about how much I love rice pudding and my grandma’s recipe. I usually just stick with Grandma’s, but it takes an hour to cook and this recipe looked very quick and easy. Plus, I love coconut milk and had a can of it in my pantry. I also loved that this recipe had cardamom in it. If you’ve had a chai tea latte, then you probably know what cardamom tastes like. It’s a unique spice, kind of peppery. It goes great with cinnamon and is often used in Indian cuisine.
Can you taste the coconut? Does the cardamom overpower it? I would love to try this pudding, so any advice on enhancing the coconut flavor would be great! Looks very yummy!
I thought it was very coconutty (if that's a word)! I didn't think the cardamom overpowered it. You could always add just a little to start with and then add more if you like. Oh, I also used the Mexican vanilla you got me, which I think has kind of a coconut flavor.