cold weather soooop

It's cold and I'm usually tired and lazy, and I'm still very much unemployed (so I'm cheap), and also I'm suffering some injuries right now, and I'm not very good at soups that aren't laksa or dumplings with noodles. So I've been trying to branch out, do some other things that aren't noodles in broth (which, we'll talk about another day) but which are still easy and delicious and good for me. 

Anyway, this is a lentil soup I stole from a friend's partner. I don't know if mine turns out the same because I've changed it a bit but it's pretty delicious and it makes me happy on a cold winter's day. 

I know it looks gross but it's super great. Souper Soup! (haha) 

Lazy Lentil Soup

you will need:

2 cups of dried red lentils

1 brown onion

1 carrot

1 potato

1 stock cube

a chilli 

about 2cm of fresh ginger, sliced (or a tablespoon ish of minced ginger)

about a tablespoon of lemon juice (a bit less if fresh)

lots of chilli flakes

salt and pepper to taste

a litre ish of water

what you do: rinse and drain the lentils. dice the onion and fry it in a little bit of olive oil. dice the carrot and the potato (you can peel if you want, but i usually don't bother) and when the onion has softened add them in. stir them around a bit and add the lentils and the chilli, chopped thin, and the ginger. add the stock and the water and bring to the boil, after which drop it and leave to simmer. just let it go for about half an hour, until the carrot and potato are cooked through and the lentils are super soft. while it's still simmering, use a masher to roughly mash it all. you can blend it if you want but i prefer it this way, it leaves it a little rough and filled with bits. add in some of the chilli flakes and all of the lemon juice, turn off the heat and let it sit for five minutes. serve sprinkled with more chilli, and salt and pepper. so good, so easy. 

slow cooked lentil ragu with fettucine

last saturday i had my very first visit to little deer tracks in coburg, where i had an amazing lentil ragu over linguine and obsessed about it all week, until finally i cracked and on friday attempted one of my own. it was delicious, we finished nearly all of it and i was so sad when i ran out of pasta. 

it filled the house with beautiful, rich aromas and filled my mouth with tastiness and my belly with warmth, i recommend you make this immediately as we now, finally, appear to be commencing our descent into a melbourne winter. 

slow cooked lentil ragu over pasta

ingredients

1 brown onion (diced finely)

2 celery stems (diced finely)

1 carrot (diced finely)

1 field mushroom (chopped finely)

1 garlic clove (diced finely)

1 red chilli (diced finely)

200g puy lentils

600g diced tomatoes (i used canned)

4 cups stock

1 bay leaf

handful of basil leaves (shredded)

splash of dried oregano

long pasta (fettucine, linguine)

what you do

soak the lentils in some hot water while you chop your veggies. 

in some olive oil, brown the onion, then add the celery and carrot with the mushroom. allow to fry until the mushroom starts to release its juices, then add the garlic and the chilli and fry through for a minute or two. drain the lentils and add these and the tomato to the pot. simmer for a few minutes before adding the basil, bay and oregano, as well as the stock. bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, and leave simmering, half covered, for as long as it takes for the lentils to cook through. the longer the better - i simmered for about an hour. top up with stock or wine as appropriate, if necessary. 

cook the pasta as appropriate and serve together. 

i also shredded a small handful of baby spinach leaves and added them in right at the end. if i'd had some some red wine i would have added a splash or five at the beginning to bring out a rich flavour, but it was totally fine and rich without. 

will make this again almost immediately. i'd love to try this as a lasagne sauce. you can barely tell there are mushrooms in it if you chop them finely enough. 

easy brown lentil salad

As the weather warms up (not that today is that warm), I've been making some salads. My salad making has become distinctly influenced by the salads made at Friends of the Earth in Collingwood, which is not a bad thing at all; the focus at FoE is on really simple, roundly nutritional salads, and it's exposing me to all sorts of salad combinations I'd never previously considered!



Twice now I've made this lentil salad at home. If you use canned lentils (which - this was my first time!), then it's fast and easy, and delicious! It goes well as a side with pies, or puff pastry triangles.

easy brown lentil salad

1 x 400g can brown lentils, rinsed well + drained
1 carrot, peeled + diced tiny
half a punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
handful spinach, rinsed + torn
half an avocado, diced
1 - 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, preferably fresh but does not have to be

method: combine all the ingredients. serve or eat from the bowl.

dahl pies

On Saturday, we ended up with a lot of extra lentils at FoE. A LOT of extra lentils. So I brought some home, and Danni (with assistance from Jo) made some pie. The lentils were a bit runny, so Jo thickened them up, and then there was some potato cooking to coat the lentils in sweet potatoes and garlic and nutritional yeast. And then the pies went in the oven.

And then they were DELICIOUS.

This is just one thing that we sometimes do with leftovers (also I put the rest of these leftovers in a very tasty lasagna, but more on that later).