A Recipe for Spicy Chicken Stew for our Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club

Spicy Chicken Stew

We are so glad that you have decided to join us once again for our Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. This is a monthly event where 5 ladies in two countries get together to create a delicious meal with a theme in mind. We all share a love for Cooking Light magazine which has an emphasis on healthy eating and living. Each issue covers light cuisine and includes more than 70 delicious and flavourful recipes. It also explores food and nutrition news as well as fitness, health and beauty. Here is this months write-up on the Cooking Light blog Test Kitchen Secrets.

For the month of January we are going back to our roots and starting the New Year off with food that is simply prepared and associated with a sense of home and contentment...SOUPS AND STEWS. After the head-spinning social gatherings of the holiday season January is the time to step back and reflect on all the possibilities of the new year. It’s about talking and communicating and sharing a meal that’s special and realizing what’s important in life. This Spicy Chicken Stew dish exudes comfort and is very bit worth trying from the pages of Cooking Light magazine. The month of December has been a feeding frenzy so now it is time to make the simple dishes that require only one pot!!!!

So what is comfort food? Generally it's the food we have good memories about. Comfort foods like soup and stew are foods that nourish the soul as well as our bodies. They tend to be foods that remind us of simpler times. They are familiar, simple foods. When sick, or tired, or far from home, everyone seems to yearn for the gastronomic equivalent of a warm sweater, a kiss on the forehead, a favourite blanket. While homemade meatloaf with mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and apple pie have been staples for many of us, for some of us comfort food may include a delicious gooey lasagna, a curry, borscht or udon noodles. 

An ideal comfort food should "stick to the ribs", meaning it supplies a sense of fullness and satisfaction long after it has been consumed. Soups and stews fall under the category of sheer comfort!!! Many people choose a personal comfort food for that very reason. A quart of premium ice cream or an extra large slab of ribs can be very emotionally satisfying, which is ultimately the point of eating comfort food. The pages of Cooking Light magazine are filled with all our favourite comfort foods like soups and stews while making healthier choices but loosing none of the flavour or that sense of emotional satisfaction!!!

 For this months virtual supper we shared a few bottles of wine virtually as well as created a delicious potluck menu from the pages of Cooking Light. We love to share these ideas with you each month by putting together a delicious meal for each other through our Virtual Supper Club. The idea is simple because we all share a common interest in cooking and all things "foodie". This is a team effort where we get together virtually once a month and combine what Cooking Light readers like best...good food with great company!!! For our potluck I brought a succulent Spicy Chicken Stew dish.  Tender pieces of chicken stewed with spicy salsa, tender sweet corn and corn tortillas make this a classic dish to bring to the table. I pulled out my crock pot for the second time this week...simply unheard of!!! I would suggest using hot salsa if you like it really hot to make it sing, but I liked it just the way it was!!!! Helene of La Cuisine d'Helene offered a delectable Spicy Tomato and White Bean Soup for our virtual potluck, Shelby of The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch wowed us with Shrimp and Butternut Squash in Coconut Milk Broth, Jamie of Mom's Cooking Club offers a comforting and classic twist with Spicy Sausage Chili and Aggie of Aggie's Kitchen brought a colourful and delicious Orange-Saffron Shrimp and Snapper Stew for us to savour. Check out these links for photos and write-ups.

January and it's cooler weather here in the Northern Hemisphere require comfort foods and snuggling up sitting by the fire with a delicious and comforting soup or stew that was simple and uncomplicated. I’m comforted by making these food memories for L'il Burnt Toast. I prepare food for other people to like.... that’s what gives me pleasure. A comfort food is also about sharing food with others since we tend to love the foods we remember our own mothers making. As foodies we love trying new food sensations and taking food to the next gastronomic level but we always return to simple, hearty fare when we crave comfort.

 Although distance prevents us from gathering as a group in each others homes we have enjoyed getting to know one another and have developed a menu from Cooking Light magazine that is sure to bring smiles when your family and friends share your table this season. What would you bring to the table? Link to the Cooking Light blog Test Kitchen Secrets or to one of our blogs here and make something delicious from the pages of the magazine to add to our SOUPS AND STEWS potluck...the more the merrier!!!!  An avatar is in the works as we speak so that we can all join in and be creative in the kitchen from the pages of Cooking Light!!!!