From Our Kitchen: Vegetarian Chickpea Curry with Coconut Rice

Y'all. Our dinner last night was so good! I know it may be hard to trust a pregnant lady on something like food, what with our reputation for constant hunger, eating of weird things, and so on, but you will just have to trust me when I say that you should absolutely make this at your earliest opportunity.

It's no secret that I am a big fan of most Asian foods, and I absolutely love curry. Almost every curry recipe I have ever made at home has been vegetarian, but I just think that the flavors and colors are all so wonderful that I have a hard time deviating. This recipe might just take the medal for being my new favorite curry, and can we please just talk about sugar snap peas for a moment? Sugar snap peas are not something I would normally buy. I mean, they just seem a little boring to me, and I am not the biggest fan of peas anyway. But douse some of those bad boys in some curry and holy crap I could probably eat my weight in them (except not really right now because, you know, shrinking stomach capacity and all).

What You'll Need:

Coconut Rice

• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 can light coconut milk
• 1 cup water (or coconut water, but I didn't have any)
• 1/4 tsp salt

Curry

• 1 1/2 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 leeks, cleaned and trimmed (white parts only)
• 1 red pepper, sliced thin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tbsp red curry paste
• 3/4 bag of frozen sugar snap peas
• 1 can full fat coconut milk
• 1 can garbanzo beans

What You'll Do:

1. Begin by getting your rice started. Bring liquids to a boil. Add rice and salt. Cover and cook for 45 minutes (or just follow the instructions on your particular rice subbing out the coconut milk for part of your liquid).
2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add coconut oil.
3. Once the oil has melted, add leeks and red pepper. Cook about 5 minutes.
4. Add garlic and curry paste, and stir to coat.
5. Add peas and coconut milk. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for another 5 minutes.
6. Add chickpeas and cook another 5 minutes.
7. Add salt and/or red pepper to taste.
8. Serve curry over rice.
9. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from How Sweet It Is

Random Thoughts Tuesday

Today in Norfolk, it is 63 degrees! Sixty-three degrees! I feel alive! I feel like putting flowers in my hair and twirling in the sunshine just for the heck of it! Being outside feels refreshing, and I had to break Lucy's "slow return to normal" rest in order to take her on just the shortest of walks. We were both just delighted. Ahh, 63 degrees, keep showing yourself!

This morning I sent a note to all of my customers letting them know that I was leaving my current job. I guess you never know how those kinds of things will go because, while I feel like I have good relationships with my customers, I am still the bearer of bad news sometimes, and am pulled in lots of different directions, yadaya. So it was incredibly rewarding to see the kinds of responses I got back. Even people I hadn't been working with for very long just had the nicest things to say. Does good for a girl's soul, let me tell you! I did, however, spend the majority of the morning responding to people's notes, so I got about zero amounts of my transition work done! Alas, to reference my girl Scarlett, tomorrow is another day. Maybe I can find a way to ignore emails and just get stuff done! <<Solution - close Outlook...duh>>

Moving on. I am currently obsessed with all things coconut. I think it began after watching Kelsey Williams' video of her completely adorable two year old basically bathing herself in coconut oil (and also putting it on their popcorn? Yes please!). Trust me, no judgment on that video little Roo, I do the same thing every night now. I then started reading up on it, and now I too am obsessed with the wonders of the coconut oil. Plus, bonus points for smelling amazing! Yesterday during my target meandering, I also found this granola on sale and knew I had to try it. So glad I did! Tastes like a bit of coconut heaven mixed in my yogurt!

What else? Any other Appstate grads out there that 1. read my blog (looking at you, Jo!), and 2. are weirdly reminded of Boone every Spring when they lay out new mulch? No? Just me. Probably. I have no idea why but both the smells of fresh mulch and wet mulch remind me of Boone! It took me years to figure out exactly what I was smelling when I was reminded of Boone, but I did, and, well here we are in the prime of fresh mulch laying season, and well, here I am reminded of Boone.

I think that is quite enough in the random department for one Tuesday. Don't worry, I am rolling my eyes at myself over this post! If you are also getting Spring-like weather today, go enjoy it! Have a drink on a patio or something! And, if you're still in a blizzard, well, I couldn't be more sorry for you, my friend.