Road Trip: Trader Joe's

A couple of weeks ago, a generous friend invited me to a show at Caesars Windsor, near Detroit.  We decided to take the day off work and make a day of it. Instead of shopping for clothes, we went decided to go to Trader Joe's, since we don't have access to it in Canada.

This isn't a sponsored post or anything, I was just very excited to visit Trader Joe's in Grosse Pointe, Michigan and check out all the exciting products they have. Trader Joe's is famous for their store brand products.  They have a particularly great selection of nuts, grains and dried fruit at great prices.  They also have some awesome cookies and snacks.

I love dark chocolate almonds as a snack. Both of these versions are very delicious. Coconut, chocolate and almonds is a wonderful combination.

Easter Cupcakes

These adorable cupcakes are fun and easy to make.  Vanilla cupcakes are frosted with cream cheese icing and dipped in toasted coconut to resemble a bird's nest. Then chocolate mini eggs are added to complete the Easter theme.  

Really, you can use any cupcake and frosting to make these, but I like the subtle vanilla flavour of this recipe.  

Here's what you need for 12 cupcakes:

Cookies! Oatmeal Chocolate Chip with Figs and Coconut

Although I love to bake, I'm not the worlds biggest fan of eating baked goods.  I can live without most cookies and sweets.  Except oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, which I could eat all day, every day.  I made some delicious ones recently from a Martha Stewart recipe, which I will use again.  They stay moist even the next day, which is ideal in an oatmeal cookie.  

These cookies are from Food52 and they add dried figs and coconut to the mix.  The extra ingredients make the cookies even more moist and chewy, adding a nice texture and making them a little more healthy, perhaps?  

Here's what you need:

Chicken Mango Curry with Coconut Risotto

Inspired by some 3-ingredient recipes in Chatelaine Magazine I, of course, had to make things a little more complicated. I have tried risotto a few times but never felt the effort was worth it. Spoiler alert: it's not worth it here either. Rice cooked in coconut milk mixed with some toasted coconut would have been just as good for a fraction of the effort. But this was a nice, flavourful, colourful dinner.


First, for the coconut risotto:

Warm the coconut milk with some vegetable stock in a small pot. This may be one of the grossest looking things I've ever photographed. 

Saute some shallots in olive oil in a large pan.

Then add the Arborio rice and coconut and toast lightly. 

I toasted longer than necessary. You want a light golden colour, not brown.  

Add some wine to the pan and stir until it is absorbed, then add the coconut milk mixture a ladleful at a time, letting the liquid absorb after each addition.

Once the liquid has absorbed...

... add another ladleful of liquid.  

It should take about 35 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente.  

Now for the simple chicken curry. This really is a 3 ingredient dish.  Well, 4 if you count the olive oil.

Coat chicken thighs or breast pieces in curry paste and sprinkle with a little salt.  Brown them in hot oil for around 3 minutes per side.

Slice or cube the mango. I like to use this technique where I score the flesh then turn it inside out to slice it off the skin in cubes because it looks so otherworldly.  

Add the mango to the chicken with a 1/2 cup of water and cover and simmer about 5 minutes.

Once it has simmered, remove the lid and let it simmer a few more minutes until the sauce thickens up a bit.

Serve the chicken curry alongside the coconut risotto.  Delicious!