healthy

A creamy lentil stew is my comfort food. There are few foods more satisfying than a big bowl of lentils and rice, topped with a dollop of yogurt. This meal is what I eat when I want to feel satisfied and, not to be dramatic, but truly nourished. Part of what makes this so comforting to eat, is also how comforting it is to make. There’s no need to use a recipe, or even use much thought, because most of the ingredients like lentils, tomato paste, and onion are already in my kitchen. I would also highly recommend keeping a can of coconut milk in your pantry for stews like this, to stir into vegetables, or for Thai curry. A tube a tomato paste you can keep in the fridge is also a must for me. Stews like this one also makes great leftovers to keep for the week if you make a big pot. It’s one of those things that tastes even better as times goes on. Lentils, or other legumes or beans (split peas, beans), are really helpful to have on hand. Depending on what you’re using, they cook quickly (red lentils take around 20 minutes, split peas take around 40), and are inexpensive. Even more, they’re nutritious- packed with protein and fiber.

This stew, as always, is really flexible and forgiving. You could make it more soup-like if you add more water or more stewy if you add less water or let it simmer for longer, allowing more water to evaporate. Spice blends, like garam masala or curry powder are also nice to add if you want more flavors and to make it lean more Indian tasting. Blend the stew using an immersion blender or regular blender and it will be creamier and thicker. Add more ginger, add more garlic, make it spicy. This dish is is perfect in its most simple form, but is also fun to expand from.

If you make this, I hope it makes you feel good.

Ingredients

1/4 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 inch piece ginger, chopped
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk
1 cup lentils/split peas
salt, to taste
toppings: cilantro, plain yogurt, lime (optional)
to serve: rice

Do it

Peel and chop onion. Peel and finely chop ginger and garlic.
Heat a pot over medium heat with oil. When the oil is warmed, add the onion, ginger, and garlic. Cook until onion is translucent and fragrant, around 4 mins.
Add tomato paste, cook until oil takes on a red color, around 1 min.
Add lentils/split peas and cover with water by around 1 inch.
Bring stew to a boil, then lower the heat to low and simmer until lentils/split peas are soft.
When the lentils are cooked, stir in the coconut milk and let simmer for a few more minutes.
Add toppings and serve with rice. Enjoy!!!

College is hard for a lot of reasons, but no one can prepare you for how hard it can be to stay healthy. Achieving balance between studying, working, staying social, exercising, and eating healthy is something I am constantly working towards. When there’s no one there to make your lunch for you and remind you to eat breakfast before going to school, it’s easy to neglect diet and health. For something we do (hopefully) three or more times a day, eating well can be a struggle. In college it becomes acceptable to justify a diet consisting of frozen dinners made in the microwave, dining hall food that makes you feel sick, or just having a granola bar all day between your internship and classes. It can feel like the norm to be unhappy with what you’re eating.

This problem is only challenged by all of the misconceptions about nutrition and health. What does “going on a diet” even mean? What does “I’m going to start eating healthy tomorrow” mean? Low carb, ketogenic, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, alkaline, low fat, raw, plant-based, zone, South Beach, Atkins. More than ever before, people are questioning what the ideal healthy diet looks like. Just a walk through the aisles of a grocery store is confusing. Organic, natural, non-GMO, infused, enriched, low sodium, low fat, reduced, lite. The food industry does a great job of complicating our understanding of what eating “healthy” means. That’s why going back to basics and learning to cook is the simplest way to eat healthy.

This phenomenon is a new problem. Before food became an industry, people ate what they found, grew, and cooked themselves. There were no questions about eating too much fat or not enough protein; people just ate what they could make. The industrialization of food in the mid-1900s liberated people from spending all day food shopping and cooking. However, the consequence has been people losing the basic yet vital skill of cooking. They have also lost the opportunity for that skill to be passed on. This shift, along with great marketing, normalized substituting processed, packaged, and preserved food for the real stuff. It’s been so long since people actually needed to cook to survive that many of us have developed a fear of cooking. This fear, in addition to the constraints of time and money, make it hard to get back in the kitchen. Cook food you enjoy with ingredients you recognize and can pronounce and you can’t go wrong. Cooking frees you from having to worry if something is really “healthy” or not and puts the power back in your own hands.

Of course, just saying “cook” is not so simple. For so many people, including college students, the act of cooking is complicated by lack of access to real food, time-consuming and low-paying jobs, demanding schedules, and lack of knowledge about cooking. There’s no easy remedy to these problems. For now, I want to contribute to the solution by producing information that makes cooking easier and more accessible. I guess that’s why I consider myself a food wonk.

coconut lentils

my food philosophy