Curried Lentils and Carrots with Pepper Chicken

Even today, Britain's colonial history shows up daily living. One of the most noticeable ways in which it does this is in the cooking. Traditional British food is very heavy, Thanksgiving-type stuff. Or blood sausage. Which I am going to try eventually. However, curry is pretty much the national dish and can be found everywhere. I've been trying my hand at making curry myself, because eating out is expensive. However, I've grown tired of rice. It's really not healthy to eat that much white rice, but due to curry's spicy nature, you need some kind of granular base that essentially acts as a flavor sponge. Beans are usually a bad choice for this, unless you want a beany flavor. (Black bean curry is delicious.) Chickpeas aren't too bad, but they are awfully large and don't soak up the sauce. Lentils, however, are an amazing alternative. They're small, round, and give you a texture similar to rice without the carbohydrate load. They're basically packed with protein and are oh-so-flavorless when they've been canned. So tonight, I'm going to share the curry recipe I made up. It's really good.

Curried Carrots and Lentils with Pepper Chicken

Ingredients

One can of lentils

Two medium-sized carrots

Curry Sauce (pick your favorite)

A serving of chicken breast (whatever that means to you)

Curry Powder

Black Pepper

1. Grill your chicken bits until cooked. You can flavor them if you want, but you don't have to.

2. While your chicken is cooking, make up a mixture of black pepper and curry powder. Put this on a plate.

3. Put your hot chicken pieces on the plate and roll them around until they've got a nice peppery crusting.

4. In a small saucepan with more water than necessary, boil your carrots until they are somewhat soft.

5. Once your carrots are a little firmer than you usually like them, add your can of lentils. 

6. Let this mess come to a boil. While you're waiting, you can play fun games like "Find The Strainer," "Find Something Else Because The Strainer's Holes Are Too Big," and "Almost Accidentally Start A Grease Fire."

7. Strain off the water and pour the cooked carrots and lentils into a bowl.

8. Add two to four big spoons (We have no measuring spoons. Spoons come in two sizes here: tea spoons and big spoons, which are bigger than regular American spoons) of curry sauce. Masala works well- I used a doctored masala, which is when you buy a jar of masala, add some hot sauce because they were out of all the four-pepper curries and this is only a two-pepper curry but you wanted four-pepper dangit, and stir the whole thing up really well.

9. Stir well.

10. Spoon about two-thirds of the mixture into a tupperware and save for tomorrow. Add your chicken.

This is the result:

Delicious.

And yes, that is my bed again. We have guests over and I didn't want them to wander about why I was photographing my food.