Get Creative and Meditative in the Kitchen: Sweet Potato Stew
/By Maureen Farley — Last Updated: October 9, 2025
Cooking is creative, meditative, and artistic.
As a child, I watched Julia Childs and Jacques Pepin. They were artists, taking raw ingredients and transforming them into elaborate fancy meals full of colors and flavors. I dreamed of one day learning to be a great cook, able to make dishes like that for my loved ones.
Starting when I was a preteen, my brother traveled the world for several years. When he’d come home for a visit, we’d cook together and make dishes from faraway lands like Thai squid curry, Chinese soup with wood ears and rice wine, and rösti Swiss potato cakes. We’d go out to restaurants hunting down new foods to try. He showed me that food can be a fun adventure.
At 17, I met my first yoga teacher, who happened to be a macrobiotic chef. He taught me about healthy whole-food cooking, nutrition, herbalism, and infusing foods with love and healing mantras. He taught me that if you put love and good vibes into the cooking process, chances are excellent that the resulting dishes will be delicious, and that conversely, if you worry and stress while cooking, chances increase of the meal being a flop – something burning or not turning out – kind of like food karma. In cooking, just like in life, you reap what you sow. With this meditative approach to cooking, I learned to focus my energies in and out of the kitchen.
Thanks to my many teachers, cooking has been a creative and meditative practice for me for decades. It’s fun to experiment, create, and share. I feel such joy cooking for loved ones and watching them enjoy what I created for them. When someone I love is unwell, making them a nourishing soup to support their recovery satisfies me. Cooking is a way I express my creativity; I enjoy trying new techniques and new recipes, making my own recipes, combining recipes, and perfecting recipes. I infuse the cooking process itself with love and mantra, which makes it peaceful, centering, and grounding.
I feel at home in the kitchen, and I can prepare just about anything. Getting to this comfortable place where cooking feels like lila (divine play) took practice and time. I know not everyone loves to cook, and I get it. Some people have had difficult experiences related to food or cooking. Trying new recipes or techniques, and risking food wastage, can be intimidating. However, cooking can be fun and creative, and this recipe is a good place to start if you are new to that idea.
The main ingredients will give you a yummy soup, and it’s pretty straightforward. You can choose some of the optional spices to zhuzh it up. Don’t worry about the details. If you don’t have an ingredient on the list, you are probably going to be okay if you just substitute or skip it. For instance, if you don’t have carrots, skip them or use turnips, parsnips, or even peas. If you have brown lentils instead of the French green ones, that’s fine. Spinach instead of kale sounds delicious to me. Are you making it with Mexican spices and want to use black beans and rice? Go for it. Your soup doesn’t need to follow any rules.
To start, gather your ingredients:
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons oil or butter
1 onion, chopped finely
1 or 2 carrots chopped into ½-inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, seeds discarded, sliced into small strips
3-inch piece of fresh ginger peeled and minced
3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ cup French green lentils, cooked – directions below
4 cups veggie stock (cans, carton, bouillon cube or paste, or homemade are all fine; you could even use water in a pinch)
1 can coconut milk
1 bunch kale, stems removed and leaves chopped
1 & ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
1 teaspoon white pepper
Optional spices:
Use one of options 1–3. Option 4, which adds heat only, can be added to the main ingredients or any of the first 3 options.
For an Indian flair use: 1 teaspoon coriander, 1 teaspoon garam masala, and/or 1 teaspoon madras curry powder.
If you’re in the mood for Mexican flavors: 1–2 cans diced green chilis, juice of 1 lime, 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 teaspoon chili powder, and 1 diced jalapeno. Omit the ginger from the long list of ingredients, and garnish with cilantro, sour cream, and cheese.
If you are keen on a Thai flavor, add 1–2 teaspoons green Thai chili paste (the little jar of Thai Kitchen brand, found at nearly any grocery store, is very user friendly and not fire-hot like more authentic brands), juice of 1 lime, and use an extra inch of ginger. Garnish with cilantro if you like.
If you’d like to add some heat to any of the versions above, use: ¼–½ teaspoon cayenne, red pepper flakes, or chili pepper.
Directions:
First, breathe deeply and feel your body. Sense your feet grounding you and feel the earth under them. Think of all the beings who had a hand in the ingredients you are using: the farmers, food harvesters and agricultural workers, truck drivers, grocery store workers who stocked the shelves and helped you at check out, the people who build and maintain the farm machinery, the people who work at the canning and packaging companies, and all the other people who contribute their time and energy to our food supply. Thank them for contributing to this meal. Thank the sun, the earth, and the cycles of nature for their part, too.
Set an intention to infuse the soup with love. Say to yourself something like, “I am love, and I infuse love into this meal.” Repeat your mantra several times while preparing the soup. Each time you stir, do so in a clockwise direction and imagine love pouring out of you into the soup.
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, then add French lentils and simmer for about 20–25 minutes, stirring occasionally while repeating your mantra, until they reach desired doneness. Drain and set aside. I suggest cooking the lentils separately because if there is any salt present, they may not cook properly.
Add oil or butter to a large soup pot on medium heat. Sauté onions until translucent, about 5–7 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, and spices, including any optional spices, and cook for another minute, stirring constantly while repeating mantra. Add stock, coconut milk, carrots, bell pepper, and sweet potato. Stir occasionally with mantra while it simmers (which is not quite a boil) until all the veggies are tender but not mushy, about 20–30 minutes. Add cooked lentils and kale and cook for a couple more minutes stirring with mantra until the kale is wilted and the lentils are hot. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Say a final mantra over the prepared soup, serve, and enjoy.
May you feel joy in the kitchen.
May your meals be infused with love.
May you and your loved ones be nourished.
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