This new year has begun in much the same vein as the parting year ended. It sees me re-evaluating my life. (You don’t know how fed up I am of doing that!)
January 2014 saw me working in an ecstatic frenzy! While listening to Hans Zimmer’s Lasiurus, from the Batman Begins film soundtrack, my impassioned imagination took the idea of a historical romance and ran with it. I wrote until the summer. Then I took a job that saw me sitting inanely on a bus for three hours a day, commuting, which killed my soul and subsequently my characters.
Now, with all this wasted time on my hands, it makes me think that maybe 2016 is a year when I should publish a novel? Where I should stop being a lazy writer and work for my living?! Maybe I should not only re-evaluate on the job front but the latest novel to hit the scrapheap? What do you think?
I have been meaning to write a blog post for a while now and yet each time I have planned a post the meal has fallen decidedly flat. Like tonight.
Yesterday, I felt the nervous excitement of finding a recipe I looked forward to making, (I need to get a life) but come this afternoon, I found I had no green lentils and only half a tin of chopped tomatoes. I decided to go ahead with the recipe anyway, which I found in the Asda Good Living magazine. I do like trying out new recipes, so I decided on the Lentil and Chickpea Curry, as I had no spinach.
I used what I had in, meaning half a red onion, half a carrot and half a yellow pepper as well as 100g of red lentils and a can of chickpeas, plus spices. The meal looked and tasted like every other vegetable stew/curry I have ever made. I can’t complain as it was eaten by everyone so it must have been ok?! I served it with brown rice which apparently ages you, according to a report David had recently read. However the health benefits are better than white rice, so a few wrinkles have to be better than being in an early grave?
Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- 1 red onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves crushed, (also used pepper and carrot… I hate waste)
- 2tbsp of medium curry powder
- 400g of chopped tomatoes
- 400g can of green lentils, drained. (I didn’t have enough so used 100g of red lentils, dried)
- 400g of chickpeas, drained.
- Baby spinach (I never had any)
- salt for seasoning
- Naan or rice to serve
Method:
- Heat oil in pan, cook the onion, slowly and then add the garlic.
- (I added the onion, garlic and pepper together and simmered in a lidded pan until soft)
- Then add the curry powder and cook for 1 minute
- (I also added a squirt of tomato paste just to add taste)
- Add the tomatoes, lentils and chickpeas and simmer for eight minutes, or until thickened.
- Add the spinach at the last minute to wilt it
- I also used brown rice which took 25 minutes to cook, adjust cooking times accordingly
The finished recipe if following the above should look like this:
Christine Lucas 