No-Bake Kapu Cave Coconut Clusters

My girls love the Nancy Drew video [computer] games.   They've played them all and love them all and love the HER Interactive website and blog.  Earlier this month, HER Interactive hosted a cookie recipe contest.   They came up with a recipe that would go with one of the mysteries, made a batch [yum!], we photo-ed them and then they submitted them to the website for a chance to win some Nancy Drew swag.  [Good luck, Girls!!]

They had a lot of fun coming up with these cookies and they are darn good, too!

No-Bake Kapu Cave Coconut Clusters
www.rurification.com

Ingredients:
1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup)
1 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 chopped pistachios

Melt the butter and the chocolate chips in a small sauce pan on low. Stir to try to combine. If the butter and chocolate refuse to combine, don't worry. The cookies will be fine.  Mix in the rest of the ingredients and stir until well combined. (It will look dry and crumbly.) Take off the heat and let cool for a minute while you line a cookie sheet with wax paper. When cookie mixture is cool enough to handle, roll into 1 inch balls. Let them finish cooling and setting up. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Note:  You can use sweetened coconut, but that makes them super sweet.   They were plenty sweet without the extra sugar.

Coconut Squash Soup

Winter squash soup is one of my favorite breakfasts.

Really. 

I love it.    Especially the sweet soups.

We have a lot of winter squash this year and I was thinking that coconut milk would make a wonderful addition to squash soup.

And guess what!?

It totally was.  

And it was so easy that it's embarrassing to even call it a recipe.  

Coconut Squash Soup
from www.rurification.com

• 1 squash the size of a big head.  I used one of my golden hubbards.   
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• Toasted Coconut marshmallows, cut in half

Cut the squash and take the seeds out.   Roast the squash until very soft.   Scoop the flesh out of the skin or peel the skins off and put the flesh into a blender.  [Feed the skins to the chickens.  Or your compost pile.   Or your trash can.   Whatever.]   Blend the good squash stuff up with the coconut milk and brown sugar.  

Then put it in a casserole dish and top it with the coconut marshmallows.   Put the cut sides down all over the soup.    And then broil it until the marshmallows are all toasty and puffy and fabulous.   

To say that I loved it was an understatement.   Everyone loved it.  The real miracle was that even Lily ate it and liked it and she's not into the winter squash type vegetables.  At. All.  Period.  End of subject.  Unless they're in pie.

I'm thinking I could dress this soup up if I added a bit of cinnamon and some finely ground coriander.   What do you think?