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Garlicky Lentil Soup with Chard and Lemon

04.15.2015 by J. Doe // 5 Comments

The Child and I flew down to California to visit my father and stepmom last week, an experience made easier by direct flights and a funny coincidence: On the TSA screening line, I noticed that the agent testing people’s hands for explosives residue looked familiar. By the time I was close enough to read her name tag, she had recognized me, and threw her arms around me, and admired how much The Child had grown, before finally swabbing our hands and wishing us safe travels.

Seven years ago, she was the dog rescuer who saved The Dog – the first dog she rescued – and helped me adopt him. I’d kept in touch with her sporadically since then, through Christmas cards and the occasional email. Lately, she has struggled with multiple jobs to make ends meet, and more recently, a divorce.

I want to tell her things get better, but for a moment, they are.

For our return trip, I foolishly select a 6 am flight, and since my father’s house is not actually very close to the airport, the night before the flight, The Child and I stay in a nearby motel with 24-hour shuttle service. The motel was nice, and the shuttle picked us up right at the door of our room, saving us the trouble of hauling our luggage across the parking lot.

The driver loads our bags, heads for the airport, and after a few minutes, turns on the radio to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing.

It is the second time I’ve heard this song in two days. The first time, I sat with The Child on Universal Studios CityWalk, and as it played on the loudspeakers, explained to her why every time I hear this song, I think of the final scene of The Sopranos. She couldn’t follow what I was saying, since she’s never watched the scene or the series, and so when it played again on the bus, she didn’t even notice. I did, though, and brooded about death symbolism as the bus passenger next to me asked me where I was flying, and why; as The Child was selected for the speedy TSA precheck line, and I wasn’t; and as the plane took off, and I placed my feet flat on the floor and reminded myself, again, how to breathe.

That’s right.

I didn’t do much on our first day back, but made up for it on the second by unpacking, rearranging my closet, and running a host of uninteresting but useful errands like stocking up on groceries, and filling my car’s gas tank.

Then, finally, I made a simple dinner to end my simple day: I made soup.

I’ve made lentil soup a couple of times, and though I like lentil soup when I eat it elsewhere, I’ve never managed to make one at home that I enjoy. My lentil soup efforts can be summed up in one word: bland. This time, though, I got lucky, with a review copy of Rose Water and Orange Blossoms by Maureen Abood. It’s a collection of recipes from Abood’s Lebanese-American childhood; more recipes can be found on her blog of the same name.

I enjoyed the cookbook, with its lovely photography and intriguing but accessible recipes for things like yogurt marinated chicken skewers and fig jam with anise (doesn’t that sound lovely with cheese?). But the recipe that appealed to me most was Abood’s recipe for garlicky lentil soup with lemon, which, it seemed to me, might be the solution to my lentil soup woes.

It’s pretty close.

The soup is simple enough to make – cook the lentils in one pot, while cooking the garlic, onions, and chard in another, then mix it all up at the end. I loved the garlic, chard, and onion mixture, and could have eaten that by itself. I’d happily have it any day as a side dish, or perhaps underneath some baked eggs for breakfast. The lemon adds a delightful brightness to the soup. Abood uses 1/2 cup freshly chopped cilantro, which I’m not sure I’d do again, but mostly a personal issue as I was unable to locate fresh cilantro and had to use some “fresh” from a tube, which isn’t quite the same thing, especially when used in such quantity in a recipe.

The recipe claims it makes ten servings; I suppose that’s possible if you have a thimble collection you want to show off at mealtime. I found it made four bowls of fairly thick, satisfying soup; there wasn’t much in the way of leftovers, so next time, I’ll double the recipe.

This soup is a little adventurous, in its way, but also safe and soothing, the way soup should be.

garlicky lentil soup

 

Garlicky Lentil Soup with Chard and Lemon
 
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Author: adapted from Maureen Abood, Rose Water and Orange Blossoms
Ingredients
  • ½ cup lentils (brown or green)
  • 4 cups water
  • 1 tsp salt, divided
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 1 large onion, finely diced
  • 1 bunch chard, any type, cleaned, trimmed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
  • ¾ tsp ground coriander
  • pepper to taste
  • 4 large garlic cloves, minced
  • ¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves, minced (optional)
  • juice of ½ lemon
Instructions
  1. In a large pot, bring the lentils, water, and ½ tsp of the salt to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the lentils are just tender, about 20 minutes.
  2. Heat a large saute pan, and when hot, add the olive oil. Add the onion, chard, the remaining ½ tsp of salt, coriander, and pepper. Saute over medium heat until the chard stems and onions are soft, but not brown, about 5 minutes.
  3. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, another minute or so, then add the cilantro, if using.
  4. Add the chard mixture to the lentils, stir in the lemon juice, and continue to simmer over medium heat for a few minutes.
  5. Turn off the heat and let the soup sit about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings, as needed.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // chard, garlic, lentils, soup

Macrina Bakery’s Tomato and Fennel Soup with White Beans

10.11.2014 by J. Doe // 1 Comment

I talk to Mr. Faraway a few days later, on the phone, and spend a lot of the time crying, although the conversation isn’t really unpleasant; nothing happened that he didn’t expect, and he’s not one for saying unkind things, no matter the circumstances. A few days later, I receive a birthday gift in the mail, the one he’d bought to give me at the now-canceled dinner; it arrives complete with a typed note on formal letterhead, and finally, one of us gets mad, and it’s me.

Really? Letterhead? I text him. I didn’t know we were at that point.

He calls me a bit later, and protests, but it’s my personal letterhead, because you’re a friend.

Lawyer, I tell him. You’re such a lawyer.

We feel strangely normal again, and I feel less lonely after we chat for a while and hang up.

I try to be careful – stressful times are always when I gain weight, and I’m at the point where I desperately need to lose it, rather than gain more. It’s not that I care what the scale says, but the last pair of pants I own that fit are telling me it’s time to do something, so I resolve to manage my stress with dog-walking rather than eating, and to try to eat healthily.

Eating healthy and comfort food don’t have to be mutually exclusive, I decide, and check out several cookbooks from the library in an attempt to prove the point.

When I get home, I realize I’ve checked out three baking books.

One of the books is from Seattle’s Macrina Bakery, which I’ve never been to but whose breads I can buy at the local upscale supermarket; mercifully, the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook has a chapter of lunch items, one of which sounds perfect: Tuscan Tomato & Fennel Soup with White Beans. I don’t actually care much for tomato soup, or tomatoes in general, but somehow I managed to produce quite a few Roma tomatoes in my garden this year, and grilled cheese with a bowl of soup sounds like the perfect way to use them.

For some reason, I got the idea that this would be a very tomato-y soup, thick and red. There aren’t any pictures in the book to guide me, and the recipe calls for 10 Roma tomatoes, but I have a sneaking feeling that I didn’t use the correct amount of tomatoes – my garden tomatoes are smaller than the ones I typically see at the supermarket. The soup was a mellow broth full of vegetables and filling beans, savory and flavorful. I wouldn’t change a thing, except maybe to measure and write down the volume of tomatoes I actually used (my best guess: about half).

If the end result is delicious and satisfying, then it hardly matters if the recipe was exactly followed – I loved it and so did The Child, who helped herself to seconds and pronounced it The Best Soup You Ever Made.

Tomato Fennel Soup

 

Macrina Bakery's Tomato and Fennel Soup with White Beans
 
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Author: Leslie Mackie, Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook
Ingredients
  • 1 cup dried white beans
  • 2 bay leaves
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 1 medium yellow onion, diced
  • 2 medium fennel bulbs, diced
  • 1 tbsp ground fennel seed
  • 2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme (or 2 tsp dried)
  • 10 Roma tomatoes
  • 6 to 8 cups vegetable stock
Instructions
  1. Soak beans in water overnight.
  2. Drain beans and place in a medium saucepan with two bay leaves. Cover with water and cook over medium heat until slightly tender, about 20 minutes. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Drain beans and set aside.
  3. Boil water in a large pot. Core tomatoes and score bottoms with an x. Plunge tomatoes into the boiling water for about 30 seconds, then remove tomatoes and plunge into a bowl of ice water. Peel skins from tomatoes, then seed them and cut into pieces.
  4. Combine olive oil, onion, and fennel in a large pot. Cover pot and cook for about 15 minutes over medium heat to sweat the vegetables, stirring occasionally. When the onions are translucent, add garlic, fennel seed, and thyme. Cook one more minute, until garlic is fragrant.
  5. Add tomatoes and cook 20-30 minutes over medium heat, until tomatoes are falling apart. Add reserved bean liquid and 6 cups of the stock, bring to a boil, and simmer another 20 minutes over medium heat to bring the flavors together. Add more stock as needed.
  6. Add the beans, heat through, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Notes
I used approximately half the amount of tomatoes called for, which resulted in a nice, brothy soup. I inadvertently used whole fennel seed rather than ground, which I don't recommend unless you like little chewy seeds in your soup. the original recipe calls for garnishing the soup with fresh fennel fronds and aioli, either of which would be nice, but aren't necessary.
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Categories // Matchless, Peerless, The Joy of Cooking Tags // beans, fennel, soup, tomato

Cauliflower, Leek, and Gruyere Soup

02.22.2014 by J. Doe // 4 Comments

I have a talk with the Cleaning Lady, and we say our goodbyes, and the whole thing is surprisingly easier than I thought it would be; it probably doesn’t hurt that I feel so bad about it that I cry as I tell her I simply can’t afford her services anymore.

 

The Child pitches in, as she had promised she would, and helps out with the vacuuming, and sometimes surprises me by making my bed for me or cleaning my bathroom. I do the same for her, and the whole thing is off to a good start, and she wants to talk about vacations. She remembers our trip to Belize, and thinks how nice it would be to go back, but without The Departed. It would, I agree, but it’s not in the cards. I show her the cruise I am thinking about, on a ship that leaves from Seattle (no additional airfare), everything included in the price (so I don’t have to spend the trip worrying about money). She looks at the video tour of the cruise ship, mesmerized by the size of it and all the buffets it has (she can eat what she wants and lots of it).

 

She keeps helping out around the house, and though I don’t love how she loads the dishwasher, I do love that she’s not only willing to do it, but loads it better than the Cleaning Lady, and in far less time than The Departed, so that even when we procrastinate a bit about cleanup, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle to having dinner at a reasonable hour.

 

It was on such a night that I made this soup: The Child cleaned the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher while I walked the Red Dog, and when I came home, I simply cooked in my clean-ish kitchen. I forget where I found this recipe, originally from the Saltie cookbook, but I had been waiting to try it. The Child likes both cauliflower and gruyere cheese, so I figured I had a winner on my hands.

 

The soup was very easy to make, and I made only two adjustments to the recipe: I omitted the cup of fresh parsley it called for, both because it seemed like too much parsley and also because I forgot to buy any; I also used packaged vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, since The Child theoretically might eat it. The soup turned out more brothy than I expected – I somehow thought that it would be a thicker, cheesier affair, at the end – but I didn’t mind. The cheese added a lot of flavor to the broth, and the final result was filling and oh so delicious.

 

I slurped with abandon.

 

The Child was more mixed in her praise, which is a roundabout way of saying that she couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. She thought oyster crackers might help. I thought it was perfect just as is.

 

Cauliflower and Gruyere Soup

 

Cauliflower, Leek, and Gruyere Soup
 
Print
Prep time
10 mins
Cook time
30 mins
Total time
40 mins
 
Author: slightly adapted from Caroline Fidanza of Saltie, via Grubstreet
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 head cauliflower
  • 3 tbs. unsalted butter
  • 3 tbs. olive oil
  • 4 leeks, white and tender green parts, thinly sliced
  • salt
  • 1 chunk Gruyère (about 5 ounces)
  • Vegetable stock, as needed (about 4 cups)
Instructions
  1. Prep the cauliflower: Remove the outer leaves, cut into large florets, and break apart into small florets with your hands or a knife.
  2. In a soup pot over medium-high heat, melt the butter in the olive oil. When the butter begins to sizzle, add the leeks and a pinch of salt. Sauté the leeks until they begin to wilt, about 5 minutes. Add the cauliflower and another pinch of salt, and cook the cauliflower and leeks until they start to come together, about 3 minutes longer.
  3. Add the gruyere, and give everything a good stir. Add just enough stock to cover the vegetables. Turn the heat down to low, and simmer until the cauliflower is tender, 20 to 30 minutes. At this point, the cheese will have mostly melted.
  4. Taste and adjust the seasoning and serve hot.
Notes
The original recipe calls for chicken broth, but I substituted vegetable broth. The original recipe also calls for the addition of one cup of fresh parsley at the end of the cooking, which I omitted.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // cauliflower, cheese, leeks, soup

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