Curried Lentil Soup

 

Jar of lentils, meet blog readers.

Blog readers, Meet my jar of lentils

 

Yes, it really is that mighty looking in person, and yes it really does tower over the highest sky scrapers.

There are a number of reasons why I have a jar of lentils that could feed 100 men. Let me list a few in single world explanations.

• protein
• budget
• excuse to use jar (damn that’s 4)
• protein
• awesome?

Ok that was kind of lame…

The point is, when I stopped eating meat, about every time I talked to my mom she made sure to tell me that I need to make sure I’m eating protein, and that plant based forms of protein often require mixing sources to form “complete proteins” such as rice and beans (by the way this is vegetarian 101 right now). Well mom, I listen to you (crazy right?).

Lentils are an excellent solution to the protein problem. Not to mention they’re cheap, they last forever, they’re healthy, and when you cook with them you end up making about 4x as much food as you thought you would because lentils go a lonnnnnnnggg way.

Moral of the story? Lentils are a vegetarian student’s best friend.

Still paying attention? The recipe is coming, I promise.

The problem with lentils? Most people have NO idea what to do with them!

BUT with a few simple ingredients you can make this delicious Curried Lentil Soup!

It’s warm, it’s happy, it’s easy, it’s cheap, it “warms your heart” as one of my friends puts it. It’s also really ugly, so I’m going to distract you with more pictures of my jar of lentils.

Curried Lentil Soup

Adapted from Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 medium-large onion
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1.5-2 tablespoons curry powder
• 1 cup uncooked green lentils, rinsed and picked over
• 4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• Kosher salt & black pepper, to taste
• 1 lemon, cut into 6 wedges

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in heavy large skillet or pot over medium heat. Add chopped onion, optional celery, and carrot and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until onion is translucent, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes or so.

2. Add finely chopped garlic and stir until vegetables are soft but not brown, about 5 minutes longer. Reduce heat if necessary to avoid burning.

3. Add curry powder. I started with 1.5 tablespoons. Now, add the rinsed uncooked lentils and 4 cups water. Season with a sprinkle of kosher salt and pepper, add in lemon juice, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.

4. When lentils are tender, I poured about half of the soup into my blender and I blended the soup for a minute. I did this to create a very thick texture. After blending, stir the soup back into the skillet/pot and you will have a very thick soup with some chunky pieces left from the soup you did not process.

5. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and additional curry powder, if desired. Sprinkle with thinly sliced green onions and serve with lemon wedges.

Makes about 4-5 cups.

Seriously good stuff. I made this last night. LAST NIGHT! That’s how excited I am to share this with you! I never post that fast! Give it a shot. Winter is cold. This soup is not.

 

Happy lentil cooking!

-Leah

Cinnamon Snap Cookies

 

Oh look. It snowed again. That’s fun.

Yawn.

Have you noticed how many posts of mine are baking? I like to bake…and my baking is wayyyy more interesting to post about than my cooking.

My cooking generally is pretty uninspired and straight forward. Occasionally I get creative.

Baking though? Baking is magic in the kitchen. And delicious. And it makes everyone happy, including me.

Also the lighting at night sucks, and who cooks dinner during the day?

Moving on.

Do you miss Christmas? Christmas seems to give a point to this winter mess. It’s an excuse to curl under a blanket, or sit by a fire. Now that it’s February, winter is all about shoveling your car out of the snow and yelling at the weather man.

These cookies kinda taste like Christmas.

Let me bring you back.

I regret to inform you that I apparently was NOT thinking about taking pictures at all while making these cookies. I didn’t even get a picture of them when they were done! To be fair, they didn’t stay around for very long.

They were super good. Simply flavored, just as they sound. They’re basically a gingersnap cookie with a very present cinnamon flavor instead of…gingersnap flavor.

It’s a munchable cookies.

They take a bit of time just because they need to chill for a bit, but then it’s just slice, bake, and eat.

…eat a lot

…quickly

What? They’re munchable…

Cinnamon Snap Cookies

(Adapted from Simply Recipes)

Ingredients

• 2 cups four
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp ( 1 and 1/2 sticks)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 large egg
• cinnamon and sugar for rolling

1. Mix together flour, baking soda, salt cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the honey, egg and vanilla and beat until combined (a minute or so).

3. Mix in the dry ingredients until incorporated and the dough is smooth.

4. Divide the dough into two parts, and lightly roll them into logs on a floured surface. The logs should be roughly 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for at least 2 hours.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or simply grease. Mix some cinnamon and sugar on a plate to any sort of proportion you like (the suggested is 1/4 cup sugar to 1 teaspoon cinnamon but i  generally put more cinnamon).

6. Slice the dough into 1/4 inch rounds with a knife. Press each round into the cinnamon sugar mixture, and place on the baking sheet (give them room, the spread).

7. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until they are a dark golden-brown. They burn pretty easily so I’d watch out! They become crisp when cool.

This recipe makes A LOT (about 4.5 dozen) which is a lot of slicing and baking. You can always make a batch and freeze a log for later though!

Happy munching! (seriously…they’re so munchable)

-Leah

 

P.S. I swear, it will be warm again some day

Oatmeal Pancakes, and a little something called Mexico

This title might seem a bit confusing, pancakes and Mexico don't tend to fit in the same sentence too often, however these two things currently share something- a good friend of mine. Wait... now it sounds like the pancakes contain person (they do say love is an ingredient...?), let's pull a Tarantino and jump back to this past summer.

As some of you readers may know, I spent summer here in Worcester. Having had my friends-in-the-area group reduced to a good handful I became an e-mailing/facebooking/texting fiend. Thankfully between visits to Leah in Cambridge, weekly themed parties, some awesome roommates, and regular conversations with Sasha I survived. During one such conversation with Sasha, a particular oatmeal pancake recipe was mentioned. After a desperate plea on my side and a fit of giggles on the other I had my recipe!

The recipe comes from a family friend of Sasha's and makes for some pretty darn quick and tasty pancakes. They are simultaneously light and dense, and are just sweet enough not to need any sugary garnishing, but certainly don't suffer from the addition!

Oatmeal Pancakes
Makes about 8 small pancakes

1 cup oats (I suggest rolled or instant)
1 1/8 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil


Mix the oats and milk together in a small bowl and let the oats soak for at least 5 minutes. Separately combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Beat the eggs with the vegetable oil. Mix all the ingredients together until just evenly mixed, and cook batter in small batches on a hot skillet (I normally set mine at about medium heat). Flip once the batter on the top side begins to look cooked (and the bottom has those awesome brown swirly marks).





Super easy and delicious!

Sasha happens to be spending the year in Mexico City, specifically in the D.F., volunteering at Casa de los Amigos. The house is a "Quaker guesthouse/social justice organization/community center/international community in the center of Mexico City that hosts travelers all over the world, as well as immigrants and refugees seeking political asylum." She even has her own blog, which you can find here, that is full of posts that range from beautiful pictures of the city, daily struggles of living in the city (air pollution and clean feet, for example), and brief illuminations on immigration and globalization. I recommend checking it out!

Also, I'd like to invite readers to post or e-mail us any awesome recipes you'd like to share. Who knows, maybe yours could be the next featured post!

Warm wishes and toasty regards,
~Kai

Let’s Talk About….Milk

 

 

These are the cows that provide me and Kai with our milk

 

This is me chilling with said cows

  

This is Kai being crazy. Or excited to get our milk.

 

These are the machines that bottle our  milk

This is the sweet glass bottle our milk comes in

I guess I just felt like sharing this because I’m really proud that we’ve managed to maintain a drive to find local and more healthy foods. This milk was a particular win because we tracked down this awesome dairy farm where you can see the cows outside roaming happily.

Too frequently this country has turned to producing the cheapest goods we can, which often requires sacrificing the environment as well as our health.

It scares me how much the food industry can get away with just because consumers are not paying attention or are oblivious, and our government for some reason chooses to not protect the health of their people. 

If you want a really good book on this issue, pick up Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. This book changed my whole mindset  on meat, eggs, and dairy, and actually inspired my Master’s paper. It is not just a book yelling at you to become vegetarian, but it really gives you enough information to think about what you’re putting in your mouth. I’m actually not a vegetarian, but am pretty close. Another good one is In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen.

Anyways, discovering Cooper's Hilltop Dairy Farm was really a win for me over the food industry (lame right? but totally true). Kai is really proud that we’ve managed to spread the joy to about 8 of our friends, and constantly makes jokes about how we’re basically the milk man.

If you are one of our lovely friends (or even friends of friends of friends) in the area, and you want in on the delicousness of glass bottled, local happy cow milk, just let one of us know! We’re happy to pick up for more people!

Seriously. It’s SO good.

Happy extremely cold  oh  my god when is it going to be warm again winter day

-Leah

Peanut Butter Cookies

 

Ooooh. I found my pictures for these cookies and immediately became happy.

Do your cookies do that?

They could if you make these.

Peanut butter is funny. Did you know it’s really an American thing? Either that or a bunch of my international friends think that it’s really strange.

When I was studying in England, my flat mates made fun of me for how much of it I would eat (I really like peanut butter…). I know Kai also struggled to find it when he was in Spain.

Anyways. Peanut butter cookies.

Really, these were excellent, especially with tea.

I dipped half of mine in a chocolate ganache which made them even better.

Chocolate and peanut butter is always a good idea.

 

Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from Better Homes and Garden

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup peanut butter, all natural chunky
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 egg, room temp
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 

1.  Preheat oven to 375F.

2.  Stir together flour, baking soda and baking powder in a med bowl.

3.  In a large bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, sugar and honey until mixture is creamy.

4.  Stir in egg and vanilla until you can’t see any more egg.

5.  Stir in the flour mix in three parts to avoid getting it everywhere while you stir.  Mix it in until just combined.

6.  Spoon 1 inch balls about 2 inches apart on parchment lined baking sheets.  You could also just use un-greased baking sheets.  Flatten balls with the tines of a fork in a crisscross pattern and sprinkle with sugar.    Bake for 8-10 minutes until lightly golden on top.

 

 

…then dip in them chocolate if you want an awesome experience.

 

Mmm these really were good. I’m gonna have to make them again.

You should too.

Then report back.

Happy baking!

-Leah