A new culinary challenge

Frustrating food news: I just found out my cholesterol is high. Not call-the-doctor high, but higher than it should be for a woman my age and size. I suspect it's because of all the bacon, soft cheese, and fried chicken I love so much. So for the near future, at any rate, my gustatory experimentation will have to involve (shudder, wince, sob) eating a bit more healthily than I have been lately.

Did you know 73% dark chocolate has no cholesterol?

Anyway. I had a few friends over last night, and I'm pretty pleased with what I chose to serve them. I needed to meet these parameters:

1. Accommodate a couple of folks' food sensitivities: no tomatoes, no celery, no nuts, no beef.
2. Serve ten people who will not all be arriving at the same time -- in other words, something that can be served at any point, rather than needing to be plated and eaten at a precise point of doneness.
3. Be reasonably "healthy" without leaving my guests feeling that I'm forcing them to observe a diet.

I ended up starting with a recipe for Moroccan vegetables and improvising on it considerably. What I ended up with was a stew of chicken, onions, chickpeas, carrots, sweet potatoes, and corn, heavily spiced with garlic, cinnamon, ginger, cumin, red pepper, black pepper, and clove. I served it over couscous and let people doctor it with mild harissa to their own heat tolerance level. (I can easily find mild harissa in the tube -- I got mine at the Ferry Building -- but I'm still looking for the hot stuff and will probably have to order it online.)

Tasty, healthy, lacking all offending items -- it was a hit, and I had a tiny bit left over, which I ate this morning for breakfast, since like most stews, it was better the second day.