Soup Day
Yesterday was soup day, because I made soup. Amazing how that works. I made lentil and root vegetable soup. It also had celery in it, ruining the root vegetable theme - but I categorised it as "seasoning" so the theme was saved, whew!
The veges were carrots, an old wrinkled parsnip (it is not necessary that the parsnip be in this state, but in my case I am trying to reduce food wastage so I had to use it on the double! It was rehydrated in the soup, good as new, I'm sure...), yams, swede... I wasn't quite sure if that even grew underground initially, but it does... Wikipedia says that it is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip! So you can eat the leaves, although it is never sold with leaves here. Actually, if you want more ideas on how to eat a swede - I can seldom think of any good ideas but buy them anyway - wikipedia has some cooking notes. Hmmm, looks like a New Zealander has been at that article as it specifically mentions that they grow bigger in the South Island than the North - which means it was a South Island New Zealander.
Want to see some boring pictures of soup preparation? Maybe I'll give you the recipe too - I wasn't going to because it is from a book, but we've changed it tonnes, so there isn't any infringement on their intellectual property.
First, we start off like the recipe does say - as soon as you even think about making this soup start soaking the lentils... You don't need to do it quite that soon, but the first step is to put one cup of red lentils in a bowl with one litre of hot water.
Then, chop up some onion relatively small, and fry it in butter or oil or a mixture of these. Cut up your veges relatively small too and put them all in except the swede, and "sweat" them - cook them for a bit. Put in your garlic at this time too (garlic and onion are both seasonings AND root veges! how wonderful).
Photo: you can even see the steam coming off it - when I took the first picture (not shown here) I was disappointed because it wasn't moving; a weird thing to think about a photo - which are well-known for being static - and also about soup - which also tends not to move. But it was the steam that wasn't shown so it didn't look like it was busily cooking away like in real life. This one is a bit better.
Now, add some ground spices - about 1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds, 1/2 teaspoon each of garam masala and ground coriander seeds, some ground chilli if you want - and fry it all some more briefly. Add the lentils and their water. Add the swede.
Cook until cooked.
Add chopped celery leaves that you saved from the top of the celery stalks. They are edible and presumably contain some nutrition so you might as well. Plus they are nice and bright green.
Eat it! It is quite thick, kind of a stew... If you leave it to go cold, it will get thicker, but will thin to an edible consistency when reheated.
The veges were carrots, an old wrinkled parsnip (it is not necessary that the parsnip be in this state, but in my case I am trying to reduce food wastage so I had to use it on the double! It was rehydrated in the soup, good as new, I'm sure...), yams, swede... I wasn't quite sure if that even grew underground initially, but it does... Wikipedia says that it is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip! So you can eat the leaves, although it is never sold with leaves here. Actually, if you want more ideas on how to eat a swede - I can seldom think of any good ideas but buy them anyway - wikipedia has some cooking notes. Hmmm, looks like a New Zealander has been at that article as it specifically mentions that they grow bigger in the South Island than the North - which means it was a South Island New Zealander.
Want to see some boring pictures of soup preparation? Maybe I'll give you the recipe too - I wasn't going to because it is from a book, but we've changed it tonnes, so there isn't any infringement on their intellectual property.
First, we start off like the recipe does say - as soon as you even think about making this soup start soaking the lentils... You don't need to do it quite that soon, but the first step is to put one cup of red lentils in a bowl with one litre of hot water.
Then, chop up some onion relatively small, and fry it in butter or oil or a mixture of these. Cut up your veges relatively small too and put them all in except the swede, and "sweat" them - cook them for a bit. Put in your garlic at this time too (garlic and onion are both seasonings AND root veges! how wonderful).
Photo: you can even see the steam coming off it - when I took the first picture (not shown here) I was disappointed because it wasn't moving; a weird thing to think about a photo - which are well-known for being static - and also about soup - which also tends not to move. But it was the steam that wasn't shown so it didn't look like it was busily cooking away like in real life. This one is a bit better.
Now, add some ground spices - about 1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds, 1/2 teaspoon each of garam masala and ground coriander seeds, some ground chilli if you want - and fry it all some more briefly. Add the lentils and their water. Add the swede.
Cook until cooked.
Add chopped celery leaves that you saved from the top of the celery stalks. They are edible and presumably contain some nutrition so you might as well. Plus they are nice and bright green.
Eat it! It is quite thick, kind of a stew... If you leave it to go cold, it will get thicker, but will thin to an edible consistency when reheated.
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