new "feature" on the ol' blog :: what i made for dinner

as part of my fitness challenge i've been trying very hard to eat healthier meals. which means i've been trying to make more food at home from scratch. it's been fun poring over old issues of food + wine, gourmet, and bon appetit to expand my culinary repertoire. but my new favorite is cooking light. not because they have fancy recipes that look way too de-lish, but because they actually list nutritional information on their relatively easy (and quick) to make dishes. luckily, the library has a subscription so i check out a couple of issues once a week, find what i want to try, and then get the recipes online.

here's the recipe i tried out today :: moroccan chicken thighs. as an accompaniment i made a simple israeli couscous (also my first time) with shallots and parsley. i rather enjoyed it, although now i think i might have a bit of heartburn (which is extremely rare for me).

i had a feeling the kids wouldn't like the sweetness of the apricots with the savory sauce so i halved the amount of dried apricots and chopped them on the small side. (i used the turkish kind and they were indeed a bit on the sweet side; if you can find them, use the california dried apricots like the recipe recommends.)

the coriander got omitted only because i didn't have any on hand. possibly because of that the dish didn't have a strong "ethnic"-y flavor, which was probably fine for the kids. i now have a jar of ground coriander so i'm looking forward to trying it with this added dimension. i also found that the cinammon flavor was stronger than i would've liked, and i wonder if the coriander would balance the flavors out.