My Coke Rewards: Not Completely Worthless

For those of you living stateside, I’m sure you’re well aware of the My Coke Rewards program. You know what I’m talking about — the program where you save your bottle caps and type the codes from them into a website. Each cap is worth 3 points; 12 packs are worth 20; and those mega-sized packs at Sam’s Club are worth 30. It reminds me a little of the old S&H Green Stamp program of my youth, only the Coke prizes really aren’t that great.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought until I cashed in 112 (or 120, or whatever) points for a subscription to Bon Appetit. That magazine is freakin’ awesome and the recipes are totally doable. I made the Moroccan Chicken with Green Olives and Lemon for The Coach and he — that cowardly culinary knight — loved it! Granted, he wasn’t as fond of the Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew — seeing how it was vegetarian and had that evil friend of broccoli in it — but I thought that soup rocked, especially when I reheated it for two different lunches.

Tonight, The Coach is visiting his mama in Neighboring State, so I decided to play around with one of the recipes that I knew he probably wouldn’t like. I did this last month with the recipe for Caramelized Onion, Rosemary, and Pine Nut Pizza – a most excellent, dairy free pizza for the lactose-intolerant out there (and also vegetarian). Today’s choice was the Spicy Turkey Chile Verde with Hominy and Squash. Now, I have to say that I was a little worried that green salsa and butternut squash would make strange bedfellows, but surprisingly, this soup is the bomb. I did have to alter it a little bit because my fresh cilantro wasn’t so fresh when I pulled it out of the bin in the bottom of my refrigerator. Basically, I used dried cilantro, but halved the recipe. Oh, and my local grocery store — even though it’s been carrying new things like Red Curry, Smoked Paprika, and a wicked wine salami — does not carry turkey sausage. I substituted four links of andouille sausage, fresh from the butcher. I had to pre-cook them before I started the soup, but trust me, I had time — butternut squash is a bitch to peel. [For my veggie friends: I think this would work if you just left out the meat and added more squash.]

Before class today, I mentioned that I was going to make this nontraditional soup to fight my cold. That elicited all sorts of comments from my students such as “When’s dinner,” “Where do you live again,” and “Dr. Disenchanted, you must be a really good cook.” If my stepmother had been in the room, she would have been so proud. {wink, wink}