Moroccan Night & No-Bake Chocolate Chip Balls

So, I pretty much told David that in order to maintain a healthy relationship, we have to cook supper or breakfast together at least once a month (once is pretty good seeing how we both have long days and schedules that clash). O, I also told him that we have to drink wine and read books weekly, go for Starbucks monthly and go on a hot date monthly (I know, I know .. high maintenance Sally here) .. but you get the point :)

Anywho, Sunday marked 'Cook Together' day. And we went with Moroccan (we also got our Starbucks so I could cross that one off, too ;) )

Using the Around the World cookbook, we found a delicious recipe for pumpkin  couscous.

It was a recipe that used lamb as the meat, but since I'm not an eater of lamb, we went with beef and picked up some sirloin steak. We actually made a few modifications but it all worked out. The recipe from the book looked like this:

We opted out from all the pumpkin, and used a half of a can of pumpkin puree. Everything else was close.

Instead of a pound of carrots, we just used 2 large carrots.

Instead of 2 Spanish on onions, we used 1 large Spanish onion.

The main guy cooking up the meat.

Cilantro for garnish and 2/3C of raisins.

Instead of 1 1/2C of chick peas, we used a can.

Instead of regular couscous, we used herb and garlic couscous and I think this made a huge difference in a good way! Holy flavour!

David pretty much cooked the majority of the meal!

For desert we decided to go with a recipe by Tina at CNC. Tina has the best recipes and recently whipped up a handful of new recipes for the Almond Board of California.

She recently posted a recipe for Creamy No-Bake Chocolate Chip Balls and I totally had to try it! :)

Ingredients

1/2C of rolled oats

1T of stevia

2T of melted coconut oil

2 wedges of Laughing Cow Light Cream Cheese 

1/2T of cinnamon 

1/2T of vanilla extract

2T of dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. mix all dry ingredients (minus chocolate chips) in a mixing bowl
2. melt coconut oil and mix with dry ingredients 
3. stir in chocolate chips
4. roll the batter into balls and place in freeze  for 1-2-hours
5. eat & enjoy

Note: Tina uses sugar, we used stevia. She also used 2 wedges of laughing Cow Smooth Sensations Cinnamon Cream Cheese but we used Light Laughing Cow Cream Cheese (50-calories/2pc) and a tsp of cinnamon.

Anyways, ethnic date night was quite a success and everything turned out deadly! I wish I could eat meals like this evvvvvery day of the week :)

I'm already excited for the next country we cook from! 

Cheers, friends!

O, and ps. If you haven't checked out CNC, please take a minute and do so! She has an amazing blog and her cooking is fantastic!

Questions

1. How broad are your taste buds?

2. What's your favourite ethnic dish?