I originally made this Chocolate Coconut Cake for my dad for his birthday a few years ago. Since then, my parents request it any chance they get!
The recipe is a chocolate cake that substitutes coconut milk for regular milk in the recipe. It is then topped with a coconut cream frosting and some coconut flakes for extra coconut-y goodness!
Cake:
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened (or margarine to make dairy free)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 (13.5 oz) can coconut milk
Frosting:
4 sticks (2 cups) unsalted butter, softened (or margarine to make dairy free)
I have been trying to get back in the habit of making a few make-ahead meals on weekends to make weekdays a bit more manageable. While looking through old recipes, I came across a recipe I made nearly a decade ago for Coconut Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. I decided to revisit the recipe, adding a bit more lemon flavor through the addition of lemon extract (paid link). These yummy little guys are the result!
Ingredients (makes 12 cupcake-sized muffins or 6 large muffins):
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons coconut oil, melted and allowed to cool slightly
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature, or 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce to make vegan
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup whole milk, or coconut milk to make dairy free/vegan
I really love receiving cookbooks for review, especially when they are filled with recipes that are both intriguing and simple to make. Since I received a copy of The “I Love My Instant Pot” Anti-Inflammatory Diet Recipe Book for review, I have become obsessed with this recipe for Coconut Curry Lentil Chickpea Bowls with Kale.
It’s insanely easy to make, is filling, and is absolutely delicious!
I’ll admit, it isn’t the prettiest meal I’ve ever made, but the combination of ingredients makes for a crave worthy dish you’re sure to put in your rotation!
I came across a recipe for Sri Lankan Coconut and Turmeric Chicken Curry a while back, but was unable to find all of the ingredients to actually make it. (Curry leaves are difficult to come by near me!)
Recently, I just gave up and decided to make it with some substitutions.
This recipe from Delicious.com, even with my adjustments, is so fantastic that I can only imagine how good the original is!
Ingredients:
1 medium white onion, roughly chopped
~1 1/2 inch piece ginger
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small jalapeno, seeds and membranes removed
8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
4 tablespoons coconut oil, divided
1 tablespoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
3 cardamom pods, smashed
1 piece of cinnamon
2 whole cloves
3 bay leaves
1 (13.5 oz) can coconut milk, well shaken
1 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons cashews, finely chopped, plus extra to serve
This past Sunday was crum-my. It rained ALL day. So I was in comfort food mode. Along with making another batch of Lemony Red Lentil Soup, I decided to make a rice pudding recipe in my slow cooker, heavily inspired by Phyllis Good’s Stock the Crock recipe for Coconut Rice Pudding.
My version for Slow Cooker Coconut Rice Pudding uses a different flavor profile, so be sure to check out the original in the cookbook as well as the below. (I made another recipe from this awesome cookbook as well. Go check my post on Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala here.)
Rice Pudding is found in different forms around the world. It is eaten as a breakfast, dessert, or sometimes even dinner. Many countries have a version of rice pudding that is traditionally served for Christmas.
My version adds some of my favorite flavors to one yummy dish: coconut, rose water, cranberries, and pistachios.
Note: I was sent a package of Matcha Green Tea from Tenzo Tea in order to write this post. Opinions are mine alone.
I’ve been on a bit of a muffin kick recently. I’m trying to make sure we have as many “quick meals” as possible on hand during the busy fall season!
I was recently contacted by Tenzo Tea, a matcha green tea company that is based in Los Angeles. They were kind enough to send me some Tenzo Matcha to try in a recipe.
Matcha is finely powdered green tea leaves. To make into a tea, you just add a teaspoon of matcha powder to hot water and whisk until frothy. Because you ingest the whole tea leaves (rather than just steeping leaves in normal tea), there are a bunch of health benefits attributed to matcha.
I have never tried matcha before, but my sister is a huge fan, so I figured it was worth my time. Coconut matcha lattes seem to be quite a popular way to enjoy matcha, so I decided to turn that into a muffin I could enjoy during the week.
Note: I was sent two jars of Herb ‘n Zest Cooking Sauces in order to make this Pumpkin Curry Chicken with Potatoes and Peas. All opinions are mine alone.
As someone who works full-time, my biggest requirement for a dinner option is that it can be made in under 40 minutes. By the time I get home, I’m ready to eat! Although it’s not usually too much of a problem, I rarely get the chance to make dinners with the depth of flavor brought to food when it is simmered over a stove for a while.
A local Philadelphia company, Herb ‘n Zest, is changing that. Their innovative condiments and sauces allow home cooks to add quick flavor to meals in no time. All products are fully cooked and can just be added to dishes as sauces or dips.
I was sent a jar each of Herb ‘n Zest’s two most popular sauces: Chive Tomato Cooking Sauce and Curry Pumpkin Cooking Sauce. The Chive Tomato Cooking Sauce is made with Jersey Fresh tomatoes sauteed with chives and spices in olive oil. while the Curry Pumpkin Cooking Sauce is a savory pumpkin sauce seasoned mildly with curry and sunflower seeds. Both sauces are also vegan, soy-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and use non-GMO ingredients.
I love love love pumpkin, so I knew I had to try that one first! I decided to make a chicken and potato curry with the sauce and serve it over coconut rice, resulting in this recipe for Pumpkin Curry Chicken with Potatoes and Peas. To make vegetarian/vegan, omit the chicken.
Want to try the sauces for yourself? Herb ‘n Zest is offering a great discount through my blog: 25% off the Home Chef Starter Pack with the code get25icancook! Just click the photo of the jars below and enter the code at checkout!
You can also enter their summer giveaway worth $50. Just take a picture of yourself with a jar of Herb 'n Zest, upload it to Instagram & tag the image with #herbnzest. The summer giveaway draw will happen on August 15, 2016, so be sure to purchase your jars soon!
Ingredients:
2 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces
I live in an apartment that has no outdoor space, so we clearly do not have access to a grill, which is causing me to only want grilled food! Luckily, I have a grill pan so I can get my fix, and I’ve been using it nonstop!
A really simple weeknight favorite of mine is to grill up some shrimp and serve over rice. This recipe is quick and easy to make, but delivers on flavor! Blue Chair Bay Rum sent me a bottle of their Coconut Rum that I knew would be perfect for a glaze on grilled shrimp. The glaze caramelizes beautifully, adding a nice char and sweetness to the shrimp.
I adapted this recipe from a Cooking Light recipe, adding more hints of coconut to play off of the Blue Chair Bay Coconut Rum.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
the juice of one lime
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, minced
24 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 1 1/2 pounds)
6 sugarcane swizzle sticks, each cut into 2 pieces
Next week, many Philadelphia restaurants will be participating in Caribbean Cuisine Week.
The week, held from April 8th – April 10th this year, helps raise funds to send over 700 high school athletes from Trinidad, Jamaica, St. Vincent and Grenada to attend the 2015 Penn Relays.
The Penn Relays is the largest track and field meet in the United States and draws over 110,000 people to Philadelphia each Spring.
CCW partners with restaurants throughout Center City by encouraging the Chefs to prepare Caribbean inspired dishes and offer as specials. The restaurants will donate 5% of food proceeds from the three day period to help bring the students to Philadelphia.
The list of participating restaurants can be found here. One of the restaurants participating, 48th Street Grille in West Philly, invited some local bloggers to check out their offerings. 48th Street Grille is a Caribbean-American restaurant led by Executive Chef Carl Lewis Sr. who is originally from Jamaica and brings the flavors and spirit of his home to his food.
Appetizers included garlic roasted shrimp, jerk chicken quesadillas, 5 island wings, and my personal favorite, conch fritters.
Garlic Roasted ShrimpJerk Chicken Quesadillas5 Island Wings
Fried Conch Fritters
We were also treated to quite a few of their entrees, including sweet chili glazed salmon, jerk chicken, and savory curried chicken, which were all amazing. I am fairly certain I had dreams about the curried chicken sauce that night (I loved it so much, I didn’t even take a photo! boo), while my fiance was wowed by the flavors and tenderness of the jerk chicken.
Chili Glazed SalmonJerk Chicken
In case we weren’t full enough, we were also served mashed yams with scallions, green beans, and braised cabbage.
Mashed Yams with ScallionsGreen BeansBraised Cabbage
I wanted to share with you a Caribbean-inspired recipe given to me by CCW, in case you don’t live in the area and can’t participate next week.
I turned this recipe for Curry Shrimp in Coconut Milk into a main dish by serving it over coconut rice, but it also would work well as an appetizer.
Ingredients:
2 (14 oz) cans lite coconut milk, divided
1.5 cups uncooked rice (or about 1 can full)
2 tablespoons margarine
1 cup onion, chopped
1 1⁄2 tablespoons curry
1/2 cup bell peppers, diced (I used an assortment of green, red, and orange peppers)
Bob’s Red Mill has been providing gluten-free flours, cereals, baking mixes, and grains for over 30 years. The company is so committed to it’s gluten-free promise that they even have a separate gluten-free packaging division to ensure their products are purely gluten-free.
Camilla V. Saulsbury’s new cookbook showcases the breadth, depth and versatility of Bob’s Red Mill’s gluten-free grains. As more and more people move towards a gluten-free lifestyle (either due to allergies or other health reasons), one of the easiest ways to transition to a gluten-free diet is to embrace the many grains available that are naturally gluten-free.
The cookbook, Bob’s Red Mill Everyday Gluten-Free Cookbook, includes 281 whole-grain recipes for entrees, side dishes, baked goods, desserts, etc. that include grains such as amaranth, quinoa, millet, and teff. The book also includes a section describing the grains, their uses, and how to store them.
There are a bunch of really delicious sounding recipes in the cookbook, but I wanted to try a baked recipe because that seems to be the toughest type of recipe to make gluten-free and still maintain the same texture and taste.
This recipe for Gluten Free Coconut Cardamom Carrot Bread uses a mixture of sorghum flour, millet flour, and potato starch to make a gluten-free bread. The bread is flavored with grated carrots, coconut flakes, and cardamom.
Before sharing the recipe, I thought it might be helpful to give some information about the different ingredients used in this recipe that may be a bit unfamiliar.
Sorghum Flour is a good source of protein, iron, dietary fiber and antioxidants. Sorghum promotes a healthy metabolism due to its high magnesium and copper levels. The starch and protein in sorghum flour take longer than other similar products to digest, making it particularly helpful for those with diabetes. Sorghum flour adds slight sweetness to baked goods and can be added or substituted in any recipe that calls for flour. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 months or in the freezer for up to 4 months.
Millet Flour is a good source of protein, essential amino acids, and dietary fiber, as well as manganese, phosphorus, and magnesium. Millet flour helps keep the digestive tract operating smoothly and lowers the risk of diabetes and heart disease. It has a light, mild flavor and works well in sweet or savory baking. Millet flour delivers a cake-like crumb to baked goods. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 months or in the freezer for up to 12 months.
Potato Starch is used as a thickener for sauces, soups, and stews, or is used in baking with a combination of other flours (rarely by itself) and is a natural way to add moistness to many baked goods. Store potato starch in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 6 months or in the freezer for up to 1 year.
Virgin Coconut Oil can be stored at room temperature or in the refrigerator. When kept at room temperature, coconut oil will go in between being a liquid and a solid, which doesn’t affect the oil’s quality. It’s easier to measure out larger amounts of coconut oil when it is a liquid, so run the jar under warm running water before opening to liquify when measuring for this recipe.
Today (February 19) is National Chocolate Mint Day! With the cold temperatures across most of the U.S., I think we can all use a nice warm beverage to keep us toasty, and this is the perfect food holiday for such a beverage! So, I present: Spiked Mint Coconut Milk Hot Chocolate!
Blue Chair Bay must feel the same way, so I developed this non-dairy hot chocolate beverage to pair with their Coconut Spiced Rum. The coconut rum, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove is the perfect accompaniment to hot chocolate, don’t you think? To enhance the coconut flavor in the rum, I decided to use coconut milk which makes a rich and creamy hot chocolate base.
Rum always reminds me of warmer weather, and the Coconut Spiced Rum is no exception. Blue Chair Bay offers a collection of premium-blended rums inspired by multi-platinum singer-songwriter Kenny Chesney’s love of the island lifestyle. So even though most of us probably are not soaking up the sun at the moment, we can have our own little escape with this winter-weather treat!
For readers over 21 years of age, I also have an exciting giveaway! Blue Chair Bay has offered to give one bottle of Blue Chair Bay Rum to a lucky winner! Details after the recipe.
The Republic of Tea is one of my favorite tea companies, their tea is so good! (One of my go-to’s is their Earl Greyer Tea) I also really like their packaging; the tins make it easy to transport and keep the tea bags more fresh than they would be in a box.
What makes this tea particularly noteworthy is that the caffeine content of this tea is enhanced with green tea extract and pure caffeine isolated from premium tea leaves, so it’s a great morning pick-me-up. This tea also has a natural coconut flavor and a touch of licorice flavor, making for quite the tasty tea! It’s really yummy with a splash of milk. To really enhance the coconut flavor, add a little turbinado sugar to your tea too. (You can now understand why my boyfriend stole this tea from me!) The HiCAF Toasted Coconut Black Tea is also gluten free, carb free, with no added sugars.
I love using tea and coffee in recipes and the flavors of this tea just begged to be used in a dessert! The inspiration for this recipe was a Sunset recipe for a Blackberry-Black Tea Sorbet. Because there is already a flavor of coconut in the tea, I wanted to further enhance that by turning this recipe for a sorbet into a vegan ice cream using coconut milk.
Making ice cream is really easy but it takes quite a bit of preparation. First, you need an ice cream maker. (Luckily my mom had one!) The bowl of the ice cream maker has to be frozen for at least 24 hours before it’s ready to use. For this particular recipe, the tea bags need to be steeped in the coconut milk, cooled, and refrigerated before making the ice cream. Plus the whole ice cream mixture needs a few hours in the fridge to get cold. Whew!
So, if you’re making this, be sure to prepare ahead!
I have to admit, kale is really not my favorite green. It tends to, well, taste like a leaf. So I was intrigued when I came across this recipe for Crispy Coconut Kale on Food 52 by Ashley Couse of Bloom & Nourish. The recipe pairs the kale with oven-roasted salmon, spicy sweet potatoes and creamy coconut rice. I couldn’t wait to try these flavors together!
Note: This recipe for Crispy Coconut Kale with Roasted Salmon Sweet Potatoes and Coconut Rice is gluten free and is thisclose to being Paleo. To make it Paleo-friendly, just do not make the rice.
Ingredients:
1 cup jasmine rice, uncooked (omit to make paleo)
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons coconut aminos
1 tablespoon Sriracha
3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
1 bunch lacinato kale, ribs removed and sliced into strips
This is probably apparent with the different types of recipes I post but I really like some variety in what I eat. As a kid, I ate the exact same meals every day because I was so picky, so now that I’ve (luckily) grown out of that, I want something new and different each time I cook.
I was just send Cooking Light’s latest cookbook: Global Kitchen: The World’s Most Delicious Food Made Easy that is filled with recipes from around the world. The recipes can be made with ingredients you can find in your supermarket, making it a great way to experiment with new flavors. There are so many recipes I plan to try in this book, and you can expect to see quite a few showing up on my blog! Cooking Light also sent me an extra copy of Global Kitchen so I am giving one away at the end of this post!
This recipe for Fish in Coconut Curry (Mtuzi wa Samaki) takes a bit longer than most I post on here (~45 minutes) but is well worth the time. Because the recipe makes a really delicious sauce, I served it over rice. I also adapted it slightly to fit with what was available at my supermarket.
According to Global Kitchen, the recipe is based on a Tanzanian dish although fish curry originated in Zanzibar: Tanzania sits at a crossroads in the spice trade routes from India. That’s why Indian spices ended up in so many Tanzanian dishes like this fish curry. The dish originated in Zanzibar but is now enjoyed all over the eastern coast of Africa. Coconut milk enriches the curry and gives it a tropical flavor.Ingredients:
I am excited to announce that I will be a Perfect Protein Blogger for the summer, to help promote a book called The Perfect Protein: The Fish Lovers Guide to Saving the Oceans and Feeding the World. Written by Andy Sharpless, the CEO of Oceana, and Suzannah Evans, the book discusses how protecting, maintaining, and consuming wild seafood can help to fight both famine and obesity globally.
I am only a few chapters in to the book and already find it fascinating. The general idea behind the book is to try to eat seafood, but to try to eat WLLS: Wild, Local, Little, and Shellfish. Many supermarkets, such as Whole Foods, label their seafood which makes sticking to these more sustainable choices a cinch. But even without the labels, you can still find sustainable options at your local grocer.
As a food blogger, I immediately went to the back of the book, where there are 21 sustainable seafood recipes from some of the nation’s top chefs. They all sounded delicious, but I decided to start off my Perfect Protein posts with a recipe that is simple but packs a ton of flavor into the dish: Sam Talbot’s Thai Coconut Mussels. I love making mussels because they cook up so quickly. This recipe takes about 30 minutes from start to finish. (For another take on mussels, check out my recipe for Mussels in White Wine Garlic Sauce)
I altered the recipe a bit to make it into a meal for 2 instead of an appetizer. I also subbed in some ingredients for what I could find. All of these ingredients can be found in Whole Foods.
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons peeled and grated fresh ginger
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 tablespoons lemongrass
2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut
1 pound mussels, debearded, scrubbed well, and washed clean
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon sambal (chile-garlic paste)
1 (13.6 oz) can coconut milk, divided
2 tablespoons torn cilantro leaves, stems discarded
