Hey all! Longtime followers of my blog know that I use cooking as relaxation. A few months ago I signed up for the meal service Blue Apron, and each delivery gets better and better. Here’s the rundown of the recipe I made today, accompanied by some bad photography. I’m a lover, not a photographer.

This recipe is called Nepalese Chicken Tarkari  (did you know there were chickens in Nepal? I imagine them as large, robust fowl, well suited to the high elevations and bitter cold. Maybe they wear fur coats.). Here’s what all the ingredients looked like straight from the box:

Here’s the recipe card they send me, so I knew what I was doing with all these bits and pieces: 

I washed my veggies, seared my chicken, and made the rice and sauce. You can get the full recipe on Blue Apron.

And you know what? Overall, it was pretty good. The inclusion of fresh ginger root in the sauce reaffirms my belief that ginger is one of the more underutilized foods out there. My only gripe is that the rice involved wilting the spinach in a separate pan, then draining, cooling, chopping, and adding it to the rice. I feel like there were a few unnecessary steps in there, and if I make this again I’ll just chop the spinach and toss it in the rice from the get-go.

The star of this meal was the spice blend used on the chicken and in the sauce, a finely ground mix of curry powder, cumin, cinnamon, and cloves. Overall, this dish was easy to prepare (even with the multi-pan spinach rice), and I I can well imagine making this again. Another win for Blue Apron!