Woman's Day Coconut Beef with Rice Noodles

I absolutely love coconut! I love it in cakes, cookies, curries, you name it, I love it. Growing up I was always the odd one out in the family. While everyone was raving about the great brownies, I was disappointed that my mom hadn't made macaroons. So one of the first things that I learned to bake was macaroons. Then quickly came coconut cake and seven layer bars. To this day, seven layer bars might possible be my favorite dessert food, it combines all the great memories of my mother baking them every Christmas with my love of all things coconut. To me they are the perfect food. As an adult I have tried to tone down my sweet tooth which has been helped by turning thirty. I always thought that everyone was joking when they told me that my thirties would slow down my very fast metabolism. To my dismay I have learned that having two pieces of coconut cake in a day will indeed catch up with me now. So in order to not give up all things coconut I have learned to cook with coconut and coconut milk in various dishes and curries. The May issue of Woman's Day magazine had a recipe for Coconut Beef with Rice Noodles, which looked like an easy crockpot recipe full of flavor.

This recipe has 12 ingredients.. It takes 15 minutes of prep and five hours of cooking time and makes four servings. I did have to make a few recipe modifications. I was unable to find rice noodles, so I substituted the only similar thing at the grocery store, rice sticks. I chose to use fresh cilantro instead of basil and the full 2 tablespoons of red curry paste. I would suggested browning the beef before placing it in the crockpot, it was very dry by the time it was done. Additionally, if I made this recipe again I would add the full can of coconut milk and increase the other ingredients accordingly.

I was a little disappointed by this recipe. The beef turned out dry and the flavor was too subtle. I would suggest making the changes I suggested in the last paragraph. Without the changes this recipe is lacking. I do think that it could be saved, it just needs the beef to be browned before placing it in the crockpot and the liquid to cook the beef in definitely needs to be increased so the beef doesn't become overly dry. What this recipe does have going for it is that it has 39 grams of protein and 11 grams of fat and only costs $3.07 per serving.

For the recipe go to Coconut Beef with Rice Noodles.