Lentil and Vege Soup

This is another great winter warmer - really a meal in itself! Someone enjoyed it enough to ask for the recipe, so I decided I would blog it. Photos will come next time I make some.

I like my soups hearty and this one you could almost eat with a fork. Lots of veges and lots of flavour, a little on the Moroccan side. I didn't write it out as I made it, so you may need to adjust the flavours to suit. As with most of my soups, they are pretty rough in the amounts and even more forgiving toward any changes. You can adjust it to how you prefer.

Ingredients:

2 small onions sliced
4 short cut rashers of bacon, chopped into small pieces (optional (omit if you want it vegan) - could also use half as many full rashers)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
A large "thumb" of ginger, grated (about 2-3 tsps)
A long red chilli, chopped finely (more or less depending on how spicy you like it, or just remove the seeds!)
2tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin powder
2tsp coriander powder
1tbsp smoked paprika
1/2-1 tsp fennel seeds (optional)
1-2 sticks of celery sliced
1 large carrot sliced
About a cup of sweet potato, diced (will pretty much cook down, just to add thickness and sweetness)
375g bag of green/brown lentils
1-1/2 cup of cooked kidney beans*
Around 400g can of crushed tomatoes (I have been using Ardmona with no salt or sugar added)
1-1 1/2 litres of water
2-3 tsp of Massel chicken style stock powder
1-2 handfuls of coriander leaves, roughly chopped
Greek yogurt

* (I cooked the kidney beans separately as I felt the colour would darken the soup a little too much. You could also use tinned beans or chickpeas. If you use dried chickpeas, my experience is they take much longer to cook, so would need to be cooked separately for about an hour.)

Method:

Before you start, get the kidney beans boiling in plenty of water in a separate pan - they need about 40+mins. Doesn't matter if they are not completely cooked before adding them to the soup, as they will continue to cook in it. In a large heavy based saucepan, cook the onions and bacon in about a tablespoon of coconut oil (or olive) on medium heat until the onions are clear. Add ginger and garlic and other spices and give a quick cook until fragrant (careful not to burn them - I prepare the veges earlier so they are ready to toss in). Toss the veges and lentils in to coat with the spices and then add enough water to cover the lot and the crushed tomatoes. After the soup has been cooking about 1/2 an hour, add the rinsed kidney beans. Check the water level and add more as necessary - the lentils will soak up a fair bit. It is now a matter of testing/tasting to check that the lentils and kidney beans are soft and adjusting the salt (if you didn't use bacon, you will probably need more) and other flavours to your liking. When you are happy, add the coriander (just before serving) and mix well. Serve in bowls with a good dollop of yogurt and crusty bread.

Not another foodie blog number 1 - Roasted Sweet Potato Soup with the lot

My adventures in food preparation began when I was quite young. The first baking I remember doing was as a Brownie Guide, to get my cooking badge. I think it was hedgehog. I remember having to bash a plastic bag of biscuits with a rolling pin to make the crumbs – this was before the days of food processors.

As I continued this journey into my teens I think I nearly drove my mother mad with my need for constant reassurance that ‘this’ was close enough to half a cup or ‘that’ was a dessert spoon full. It took me a long time to relax with my cooking and realise that there is often a little lee-way with those measurements.

Back in the seventies, though, the average family wasn’t that daring with food. Most new recipes in our household came out of the CWA (Country Women’s Association) cookbook or from friends. For my family, a real shift came when my older brother did ‘Home Economics’ at high school - must have been a progressive school, as this was generally ‘girls only’ territory. He came home with a recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese. It was such a change from the bland stews, watery curries, lamb chops and roasts that were our standard fare. Not to mention that it was from another culture! (Moving out of home it was actually my signature dish - the only thing I really cooked - for some time, but that is another story.)

Fast forward a few decades. More recently, I have realised that I can actually trust my own instinct in cooking. While I might use another recipe as a basis, I find that often I can’t find one that uses exactly what I would like and so I have been experimenting more. This blog, therefore, is not just to share my creations, but also to record them so that I can remember what the heck I did next time I want to make that recipe!

Down here in the southern hemisphere, we have quite abruptly (or so it seems) entered into soup season - otherwise known as Winter! As it gets colder, I suddenly find myself desiring warming comfort food. What is better than soup to satisfy this craving?

I decided to make some soup a few days back for my husband - he had just arrived back from Indonesia (at some 30°C) to home, which was sitting at about 8 degrees. However, I really wasn't in the mood for my stock standard soups, so went on the hunt for something different. I had a couple of sweet potatoes, and the idea of sweet potato soup was quite appealing, so I started my search. Although a couple of recipes sounded ok and had a few nice ingredients, they all sounded a little bland given the sweetness of the sweet potato. (One recipe actually roasted the potato in maple syrup!)

Anyway, failing to find a recipe that combined all that I wanted, I decided to put them together and make my own. And even my daughter loved it, so I thought it must be ok! (Although she did ask, a little sarcastically, I may say, whether it was dinner or dessert - it was that sweet. However, she finished it up likety split, so can't have been too bad.)

So here it is (makes about 4 serves as a meal, unless you have someone like my hubby who will eat as many serves as you allow him!):

ROASTED SWEET POTATO SOUP WITH THE LOT

Ingredients:

2 medium size sweet potatoes

1 large carrot

1 clove garlic

1 onion

1 large red chilli

olive oil/cold pressed coconut oil

1-2 teaspoons of turmeric powder

chicken/vege stock powder

1 cup of coconut milk

coriander leaves

2-4 (shortcut) rashers bacon (depending how much you want!)

Greek yoghurt

How to:

Peel and cut up the sweet potatoes and carrot into chunks (the smaller they are, the quicker they'll cook - probably about 5cm chunks). Toss them and the peeled garlic in a little olive oil and place on a baking tray (I use baking paper to save on scrubbing!) in the oven at about 200° C for about 20-30 mins. They should be just starting to caramelise, but not burn and be nice and soft.

While they are cooking, chop up the onion and chilli and cook in a heavy based saucepan (at least 2-3 litres) with about 1 tablespoon of oil (I used coconut here) over medium heat until the onion is clear and just starting to caramelise. (They only need rough chopping as it will all be processed later)

When the veges are roasted, add the turmeric (I used about 1 1/2 teaspoons) to the onions and lightly fry until fragrant. (I usually turn the heat down with spices to make sure they don’t burn.) Then add the roast veges and toss through. Don't let it catch at this point - you don't want to destroy the turmeric flavour.

Add to this mix about 3 cups of hot water (depending how thick you like your soup - you can always add more later) and 1 cup of coconut milk. I use the Ayam brand coconut milk powder (1 sachet), in which case you may need more water. Add in 1-2 teaspoons of stock powder as well (I use the Massel powder, which is quite concentrated). Bring it all up to the boil, and when you are sure the veges are cooked through (which is probably quite quickly), take it off the heat and blend thoroughly with a stick blender (or can use a food processor, but I guess you would need to cool it a bit before putting it in).

Reassess the consistency - here you can either add a little more water (and stock if you want), or boil it down if it is a bit runny. From experience, it is always better to add less water to start and add more if you need it.

Meantime, chop the bacon into smallish pieces and brown until crispy in a small frying pan. Roughly chop a handful of coriander leaves for garnish.

Serve soup in deep bowls with a sprinkling of coriander leaves, bacon pieces, a dollop or two of Greek yogurt (or sour cream) and some nice crusty bread.

Enjoy!

NOTE FOR THE UNWARY: Use turmeric powder with care - it stains anything and everything yellow. The advice I got when looking up how to get turmeric out of clothes was to use scissors!! 

If you would like to something completely different, why not head over to my other blog at www.ruthembery.com/blog?