0 Indian Spiced Nuts with Coconut

I just love these toasted nuts!  This is Aarti Sequeira's recipe called Newspaper Nuts: Indian Spiced Nuts with Coconut from her Food Network show Aarti Party.  This was a fun snack to prepare with Miss E.

Just three differences in the way I made mine.

1. I used peanuts and almonds (that I had to crack myself...that's some perseverance!  E helped me a lot.) instead of all pecans since I only had a few.

2.  I added 2 tablespoons of Modern Day Masala organic garam masala instead of 2 TEASPOONS, (whoops...but it totally worked anyway.) By the way, Modern Day Masala has some amazing spice mixes!!  Their Butter Chicken mix is out of this world good.

3. I added a fair sprinkling of brown sugar.  There is nothing like a sweet and salty snack.

Voila!  Highly recommend.

4 Bento #170 - Thai Coconut Rice Hello Kitty

A Planet Box lunch today, with another Hello Kitty, this time with Thai coconut rice in the mold instead of an egg.  The coconut rice is in honor of the Thai cooking workshop I'm taking tonight.  I made the rice with dinner last night, (smoked garlic sausage from my butcher shop sauteed with minced red onion and bok choy that I got in my CSA basket) following this recipe from Tasty Kitchen.  YUM.

Bento #170 - Thai coconut rice with sprinkle accents, deli sliced turkey, organic sliced carrots, organic mango, dried cherry, craisin, blueberry & peanut medley, and some fruit gummy vitamins.

6 Impossibly Easy Coconut Custard Pie

My mother-in-law is really the baker in the family, and we spent the whole day on Saturday baking - white bread, loaves of zucchini bread and this wonderful concoction, a coconut custard pie which is made in the blender and makes its own crust!  That's right, no separate pie crust needed.  She had the recipe handwritten on a card, and I believe it originated on the back of a Bisquick box.  As you can see, it's been well-used.

You'll need:

2 cups milk
4 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup Bisquick baking mix
1/4 cup softened butter
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
dash nutmeg (opt)

Preheat oven to 350F, and grease a 9 inch pie plate.  Mix together all ingredients in a blender except coconut and blend for 3 minutes.  Pour into the pie plate and let stand for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes has elapsed, sprinkle the coconut on top.

Place the pie plate carefully into the hot oven and bake for 40-45 minutes.  The Bisquick will actually sink to the bottom of the pie plate and distribute evenly to make the crust.  It's done when a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.  Let it stand for about 10 minutes before slicing....

...but we couldn't wait! The piece below looks a little flat, but it was delicious!

Light, silky and fluffy, and best of all, easily whipped together in just minutes, the only torture being waiting for it to bake.