I got a snow day, though, because although the office wasn't closed, we live on a class 3 road. That means that, tough the snow fell on Tuesday night, we won't be plowed until Friday sometime.
On the other hand, we think there have probably been enough 4-wheel drives and macho trucks up and down our road to make it possible to get to a plowed road and off to work this morning.
But it was only a sort of a snow day ... I was ready to leave for work until about 3pm, when I realized that even if the roads were cleared, it would be pointless to show up as most people who made it in were leaving.
Italian Lentil Soup
Soak 1 cup of mixed lentils (I used brown lentils, lentils du puy, and red lentils) for a couple of days in clean water to immerses all of them. (I change the water every six hours or so, but I know a lot of people never change the water.)
Warm some olive oil in a heavy bottomed soup pot and add 1 medium chopped onion, three cloves of minced garlic, three stalks of chopped celery, and two or three bay leaves. Saute them gently until they're mushy.
Add three chopped carrots, 1/2 cup chopped rutabaga, 1/2 cup chopped parsnip, 1/2 cup chopped turnip and the lentils (drained). If you have a Parmesan rind, add it to the soup pot now.
Cover with vegetable broth, and let simmer until the vegetables start to soften.
(Make sure to keep the heat low--you just want them to simmer. Lentils cooked at a hard boil explode as soon as they're cooked, making something that more closely resembled lentil paste than lentil soup. You probably knew that, I just learned it.)
Add 1/2 chopped celeriac, 3-6 stems (a tablespoon or so) of thyme, and 2 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable stock, if you prefer--mushroom would be yummy!).
Only after the lentil have softened, add 1 pint of tomato sauce, salt and pepper to taste, and a couple of large handfuls of spinach.
Once the spinach has wilted and warmed through, you have soup.
I added garlic powder and hot sauce at the table. It it was pretty good before I added them and fantastic after.
That sounds fabulous!!!
ReplyDeleteI am curious if the red lentils were organic, and, if they were, where you found them. Organic red lentils vanished from my world a few months ago (though when I emailed Arrowhead Mills, they said that they will have them in stock again very soon).
By the way, I've never cooked a red lentil and *not* had it disintegrate. I think it's just what red lentils do during cooking, at any temperature. For whatever that's worth.
Anyway, that recipe looks yummy!
I never knew you were supposed to soak lentils. We all have gas problems after lentils. Perhaps if I soaked them we would not have that problem. Worth a shot since I love lentils.
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