Oh sweet New Year’s Resolutions, how we love to hate them. Every resolution starts out with such wonderful intent, a feeling of hope for the new year and a new you. Romantic isn’t it? Only until reality comes stomping its big ugly feet all over our hopes and dreams. I’ve felt the sting of resolutions gone bad over the years. So I ask myself, “why do I keep setting myself up for failure”? This year I’m choosing to focus my resolution on something that I already love doing… Cooking!

I’ve been wanting to explore the world of meatless meals, not take it all way, but just dip my feet into it. I’ve always been too intimidated by vegetarian cooking, as if it were some rare French baking method that would surely end in disaster. It took one accidental vegetarian meal to snap my mind back into reality. I was accidentally too lazy to defrost chicken for a meal, so I made it without. It was fantastic! Fear gone just like that. Imagine, cooking without meat is the same as cooking with. Hmmm, interesting find if I do say so myself. This year I resolve to have fun introducing more meatless dishes into our weekly menus. One of my first few tries hit the ball out of the park.

This Coconut Curry Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup is just amazing. It is so simple yet unbelievably flavorful. Just a few ingredients will have flavors hopping all over your tongue with every bite. Is it sweet? Is it savory? Is it spicy? Is it light? Is it rich? It’s all of those things, and it’s coming at you in under 30 minutes! The bulk of this soup is carrots, nutritious low calorie carrots. One lone sweet potato brings extra sweetness and starchy bulk to the soup insuring a single bowl fills you up and sticks to your ribs. It is all cooked down in a simple ginger curry broth which takes all of 5 minutes to throw together. I use Litehouse’s Instantly Fresh Ginger because it is just so much easier than peeling and mincing fresh. It gives that fresh flavor and easily blends into this soups velvety texture without me having to think twice about it. Just measure and dump and you’re onto the next step.

A quick finish with light coconut milk and Asian inspired toppings sends this over the top. I ate on the first batch of soup for days and I didn’t miss the meat once. In fact, I’m pretty sure that meat would most likely ruin this soup, I don’t want it anywhere near my bowl thank you. Not only is this year’s resolution a fun one that I’ll actually enjoy keeping up with, but it’s saving me money every week. Replacing one to two meals with meatless meals every week can easily save me $30. That’s the price of a pedicure in my town! I also resolve to get more pedicures…
Don’t be afraid to hop on the meatless meal train, vegetarian cooking is nothing to be intimidated by. It should be celebrated and enjoyed, so come celebrate it with me! It’s not too late to switch your resolution up a bit, to make the new year a little more exciting and enjoyable. Start with this simple recipe and you’ll be as hooked as I am.