Lentil Soup - Cooking along with the Moosewood Cookbook
Welcome! The start of something new...
Some recent news has got me shook and I need to pickup some new practices. I yearn for the blog. My youth places me just at the tail end of Blogspot, but at around ten years old, my writing sucked. With a little more seasoning on me, I return to the blogs. Let's make this Lentil Soup from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook! Let's blog a little! ✍️
I just got back from a trip to Toronto where I ate zero to no vegetables. It was all brown foods. Soup was imperative - the weather demanded it. The rain was heavy on the way to and from the store and it fell well through the night. Soup was imperative - the body demanded it. The exclusive brown food diet got me sick. The air fryer cannot carry the weight of a kitchen alone.
Thankfully I know that. I didn't know that lentils had an expiration date? This recipe put a nice dent in the big bag of red split lentils. Not sure what the legality is of me just putting the recipe up - it seems like a bad idea! Lentils, carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes, garlic, basil, thyme, oregano. That's gotta be within fair use.
At this moment I thought there wasn't enough water. It looked kinda donezo. Just a big blob of lentils floating and rolling hard. I've been trying to stick to the quantities listed in these recipes, something about confidence in the kitchen leads to adding more of the stuff you enjoy. And that's the beauty of cooking for sure, but also someone authored this thing right? I want to do best by their intentions here.
So I stuck within the lines pretty hard, and it was worth it! The split peas broke down really well and got all mushy. The veggies went in at the 30min mark and after an hour total it was ready to go. The veggies kept their crunchy texture and worked well with the thick broken down lentils. The seasoning combination gave the soup a taste and scent similar to a poultry dish, and the texture of the lentils worked to that same meaty effect.
What the... what's that?
I wanted to lead with the previous image because I thought this picture looked kinda gross. The red wine vinegar to serve kinda resembles a dissolved gum drop, but it really sealed the deal. The acidity cut through the stewy goopy baby food like quality of the lentil mass. Quite filling and hearty, big pot will last me a while. Excited to add this one to the rotation!