By Karin Calloway

Karin Calloway is a working mom living in Augusta, Ga., with multiple freelance jobs and a ton of dirty dishes.

Memorable Moroccan

When autumn arrives we head inside to entertain, and our carefree evenings out by the grill turn to candlelit evenings around the stove. It's the perfect time to try a new cuisine, and the fragrant flavors of Moroccan foods are a fun change of pace.

This month's menu features a bevy of easy to prepare Moroccan-inspired dishes. Chicken Bastilla is a classic Moroccan first course, and several shortcuts make this delicious combination of "sweet and savory" simpler to prepare at home. Follow the pastry with a crisp, light Moroccan Carrot Salad featuring three levels of orange flavor.

A tagine is a Moroccan stew named for the clay vessel with domed lid used to cook the dish. The Lamb Tagine featured in this menu is packed with herbs and spices and is comforting autumn fare. A side of Spiced Couscous is the perfect partner for the tagine, and can be made in a flash.

For dessert I strayed a bit from classic Moroccan cuisine and focused instead on an ingredient often used in Moroccan cooking - dates. My Date-Walnut Torte is a dense, rich and spicy single layer cake that finishes the meal perfectly.

Recipes:

Peach Cobbler Bars
Cobbler is a homey, comforting dessert that highlights in-season fruits, and I’ve come up with a way to make it portable in my Peach Cobbler Bars. The recipe is extremely simple, as it starts with two convenience products: packaged cake mix and canned pie filling.
Date-Nut Torte
Desserts can be over-the-top, rich and decadent, but sometimes you just crave comfort. When that’s the case, nothing beats this Date-Nut Torte.
Lamb Tagine with Preserved Lemons
My introduction to Moroccan fare was an evening spent sitting on plump floor pillows while platters of steaming delicacies were placed before me on a low table at The Imperial Fez in Atlanta. Several years later, the gift of an authentic tagine led to evenings of simmering Moroccan feasts of my own.
Moroccan Carrot Salad
The flavors of Moroccan cuisine often include the combination of sweet and savory, and a fine example of this complex balance is Moroccan Carrot Salad.
Simplified Chicken Bastilla
One of my favorite courses at a Moroccan meal is bastilla – a flaky appetizer pie with a savory filling dusted with powdered sugar. No matter whether the filling is chicken or vegetables, I love the combination of sweet and savory flavors.

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