New Moon Habit, and Kichari Recipe

We just had our latest new moon, there’s still a few days left in the Meditation Challenge, and I’m loving it! The challenge was on Finding Your Flow, and having gone through the exercises I’m looking forward to letting the lessons percolate and bloom.

For this new moon habit, I thought I’d work with the building energy in a more practical, literal way and build a ‘favorite recipes’ category here on the blog. There are several recipes that I turn to regularly, so you’ll see them over the next two weeks. I warn you though, I am not a photographer and food shots are particularly difficult, so don’t expect much!

To get started, here is one of my mainstays, fall through spring. It’s an Indian dish called Kichari, and traditionally it’s used as a mono-fasting meal during a cleanse. It shows up at breakfast, lunch and dinner weekly in my kitchen, fasting or no!

Kichari
Adapted from a recipe by Lynn Roberts of Banyan Yoga and Ayurveda

1 tb Kichari spice, recipe follows
2 tb ghee, recipe follows
½ c split yellow mung beans
½ c rice
2 c water or more
½ tsp salt or to taste

Melt the ghee in a large pan, and add the spices. Allow the spices to ‘fry’ or ‘bloom’ for 1-2 minutes. Add rice and mung beans and water, bringing to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, covered, until rice is cooked, about 30-40 minutes.

This is the basic recipe, and there is a lot of room for adjustment here. Some like their rice dryer, like a pilaf, some more soupy. I have added chopped carrots, gobo root, broccoli, sweet potatoes, butternut or other squash, and kale. Sometimes I like it with salsa, and maybe some avocado. Sometimes I use more spice, too.

Ghee
Melt 1 lb butter in a shallow pan over very low heat. It will begin to foam, as the water content in the butter cooks away. You can skim off the foam. Then the solid particles will begin to brown and fall to the bottom. When the browned bits are all fallen and the foaming has stopped, strain the ghee into jars. Save the browned bits for toppings, they’re delicious.

Kichari spice blend
Using equal parts of each, blend together:

• Turmeric powder
• Cumin (whole if possible)
• Fenugreek (whole if possible)
• Fennel (whole if possible)
• Coriander (whole if possible)
• Cardamom seeds (whole if possible)
• Mustard seeds
• Clove
• Ginger
• Black pepper