I know that I am someone who tends to sweat the small stuff, despite knowing that doing so is counterproductive and unhealthy.
So I’m trying very hard to change my perspective on things. Go with the flow. That’s one of my goals for this month. I want this holiday season to be about revelling in the beauty of this world, cherishing time with loved ones, and feeling blessed to be alive to experience it all. I don’t want to spend even a minute of it worrying about things that will inevitably not go according to plan, or stressing over things that are beyond my control. And I want to carry this new attitude into the new year.
I better practice, starting now!
Like during today’s dinner preps. It may be a very trivial, insignificant example, but it was an opportunity for me to practice nevertheless.
Dinner was all about going with the flow. All I knew was that I wanted to use two key ingredients in tonight’s dinner: yam and chickpeas. I decided I was going to make some sort of stew, but exactly how I was going to do that, I did not yet know. So I looked at what other ingredients we had and came up with carrots, onion, celery, and red bell pepper. Excellent. Stew base right there. Then I wanted to balance the sweetness of the veggies with some heat, so I dumped in some curry powder. But then the stew turned out reeeeeally spicy. At which point my good friend Kathleen called me and upon hearing of my curry predicament, suggested I put in some milk to balance the heat. Which worked really well. Great. (Thanks Kathleenie!) Except that my stew turned out rather runny and not at all with the texture of stew. So I decided to call it soup instead. See, going with the flow. Excellent. Now if only I could learn to apply this attitude to real stresses in my life…
Curry Chickpea and Yam Stew Soup:
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 2 celery stalks, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
- 1 tsp grapeseed oil
- 2 TB mild curry powder (except that it wasn’t that mild and turned out very spicy–use less if you don’t want too much heat)
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp Montreal steak seasoning (I know I know, I’m totally addicted to this stuff! You could just use your fave herb instead)
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 5 C liquid (I used 2 C low-sodium chicken broth and 3 C water)
- 3 C cubed yam (about 1/2 of a large yam)
- 1 can chickpeas, rinsed very well and drained
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 apple, peeled and grated
- 1/3 C milk (optional)
- chopped cilantro for garnish
Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Saute the 1st four ingredients until lightly browned. Add in the curry powder, cumin, cinnamon, steak seaoning, and salt/pepper. Stir around for about a minute.
Add in the liquid and be sure to scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Turn temperature up and bring to a boil. Then turn down temperature to med-low, cover, and cook for 10 mins.
Turn temperature up to med-high and add yams. Cook covered for 4 mins, then add chickpeas and bell pepper. Cook for a further 8 mins. Grate in one peeled apple.
Taste test, and if it’s too spicy, add in a few splashes of milk. Serve garnished with cilantro.
It turned out really well! The sweetness of the yams paired beautifully with the spiciness of the curry. And the chickpeas were flavourful and made it very hearty.
We had the soup with a carrot and raisin brown rice pilaf, and a big pile o’ steamed spinach:
The rice is super easy. Cuz I used a rice cooker. 😛 I just threw in a carrot (julienned) and a handful of raisins, and cooked it in a half broth, half water mixture. Totally easy way to jazz up plain old brown rice.
So going with the flow served me in good stead today, huh? I’ll keep that in mind tomorrow and in the days to follow…
Well, the flow is telling me to go to bed, so to bed I shall go…