Another Soup for Another Rainy Day

This rainy weather is really putting me in the mood for soup. The colorful bags of dried peas and lentils sitting on my kitchen counter (courtesy of the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council) are begging to be made into soup. This rainy weather is just plain miserable and who doesn’t crave a bowl of soup to brighten the mood? Today’s Sweet & Spicy Lentil Soup is completely different than yesterday’s yellow pea soup and embraces the whole lentil bean instead of a puree. It resembles a mulligatawny soup, with the lentils and shitake mushrooms creating a hearty meatless soup. My 13-year old son gives it a high approval rating and wants it to be my pick at the end of the month for the contest. It’s a really easy soup to throw together, especially if you have the lentils cooked ahead of time. It goes really well with a piece of garlic Naan, which I happened to have in the freezer from Trader Joe’s. You should have seen my son sopping up every last drop of his soup with it! I hope you enjoy my second recipe.

Sweet & Spicy Lentil Soup
Makes almost 2 quarts

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 pieces celery, thinly sliced
1 large carrot, peeled and sliced into rounds
3.5 ounces shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
32 ounces chicken broth
5.46 ounces coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste
3-4 teaspoons madras curry powder (or another kind)
2 cups cooked brown lentils
2 cups baby spinach, washed

In a soup pot, sauté the onions, celery, carrots and mushrooms until tender for approximately 10 minutes. Season with curry powder, salt and pepper. Add the chicken stock and coconut milk. Bring to a slow boil and add the spinach leaves until just wilted. Add the cooked lentils. Turn the heat off and serve immediately with Naan bread.

Recipe Development Contest

I love lentils and peas. Healthy, tasty, protein rich and satisfying, my friends and I often include them in our salad and soup making dates. Lately, we’ve been savoring various soups such as the coconut curried red lentil soup. So when I was contacted on behalf of the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council to participate in a recipe development contest involving dry peas and lentils, I accepted the challenge.

I liked their targeted approach to finding a voice for their contest and I appreciated that there was something in it for you, my loyal readers – free giveaways! You see, there are many blog entries and recipes on my website that include lentils or peas, so it must have been obvious to the organizers that I’m a genuine fan. I agreed to be a contestant (if you should call it that) in an effort to raise awareness of the health benefits of dry peas and lentils. Honestly, prior to this, I didn’t know there was an entire non-profit council devoted to “promote and protect the interests of growers, processors, warehousemen and sellers of dry peas, lentils and chickpeas in the United States.” And it’s been around for more than forty years. That’s awesome!

I often get opportunities to help promote products or gadgets, but I usually turn them down simply because I won’t promote what I don’t love. But dried peas and lentils? You got me! That’s like asking a steak lover to review a dry-aged porterhouse. I’m in.

I developed some yummy, gluten free recipes for this contest and expect to have few nifty giveaways, thanks to our contest organizer. I hope this endeavor will be fun and useful for you too. So tune in over the next two weeks. Tomorrow, I’ll post a new family favorite soup recipe, and after that, a spicy dip perfect for your summer entertaining and then, a delicious heart healthy salad. You’ll have the chance to “vote” at the end of the contest (on May 31st) by commenting on my blog and just for doing so, the US Dry Pea and Lentil Council will send you (the first 500 people) a generous assortment of dried peas and lentils. They tell me that one lucky winner will even receive a cool new baking product (which I won’t disclose until later but I can assure you is awesome).

So thanks for reading and make sure to check out the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council website. There’s a lot of useful information. Did you know that legumes are otherwise known as “pulses?” Well I didn’t either and found out when I visited their informational website: http://www.pea-lentil.com/.

Carrot Muffins, Biscotti and a Good Old Fashioned Lunch

Sometimes it’s hard to see friends. Busy lives and lots of work often interfere with good intentions. That’s why I set aside several hours last Wednesday morning for my friend Jackie. We started with a jog around the park, exercising together while planning what we’d bake later. Jackie had a delicious salad and soup planned for lunch, so maybe something sweet for dessert. Since I just received several pounds of early carrots from my CSA, we decided it would have to be something carroty. And because I also needed to test the chocolate biscotti recipe I had created, I decided to get some “work” done as well.

Jackie peeled the carrots, saving all the scraps for my compost, while I got the biscotti ready to bake. I joked about how happy I was that she performed the carrot peeling job, and she reminded me that’s why we cook with friends. And it sure is! I was dreading peeling those darn carrots, testimony to why they’d been sitting in my refrigerator for a few weeks. Even though they are quite tasty, they weren’t the big easy-to-peel ones, but rather small and thin ones, probably why I had gotten so many for “free” from my CSA farmer. But that’s what friends (or at least cooking with friends) are for!

And, payment for carrot peeling would be half of my biscotti. Not a bad deal! I grated the carrots and we created some delicious muffins together. The only question left? What to top them with! Jackie suggested a cream cheese frosting, which I snuck some cardamom into.

In the midst of baking, our friend Debbie stopped by to say hello. As we were chatting with her, we put her to work on the frosting. As you can see, our cupcakes benefited from the art teacher in her with squiggles and swirls. Voila! A delicious and festive carrot cake muffin with cardamom frosting was created by three friends. And then we sat down to a delicious al fresco lunch in Jackie’s backyard on a beautiful spring day.

Here’s our recipe.

Carrot Muffins with Cardamom Frosting
Makes 12

¼ cup canola oil
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup unbleached white flour
¾ cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 cups shredded carrots
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare a 12 muffin tin, spraying well with baking spray. Set aside.

Beat together the oil and butter. Add the sugar, vanilla and eggs, one at a time. Mix in the flour, baking powder and baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Fold in the carrots. Divide the mixture evenly among the tin, filling ¾ of the way. Bake in the oven for approximately 20-22 minutes until firm to the touch. Cool and frost if desired.

Frosting:
1 cup cream cheese
½ cup powdered sugar
1 ½ teaspoons ground cardamom
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Whip all ingredients together until creamy. Place in a sandwich bag, cut a small hole in one corner and frost as you wish!

Cooking Caponata (with friends)

“You know Alison, this took us only one hour to make. It usually takes me three!” Lou Palma

Lou’s words were music to my ears as we concluded a very efficient caponata making date couple Thursdays ago. (Caponata is a Sicilian cooked vegetable salad, kind of like ratatouille. You can find it ready made in jars near the olives and tapenade in most grocery stores.) Our unsurpassable success making five quarts in an hour surprised even Lou, a communal cooking maven who relishes preparing and savoring meals with family and friends. As I was helping Lou crimp empanadas with my friend Christina last Wednesday, I caught wind of his plans to make the traditional eggplant, caper and olive crostini appetizer he serves to his vegetarian relatives on Easter.

He kindly delayed his cooking intentions for that afternoon, and agreed to make the dish with me (and our friend Debbie) the following day. Like me, Lou gets pleasure out of teaching eager cooks how to make something for the first time. He’ll also rarely turn down an offer of help. I think my wide eyed enthusiasm guaranteed it would be worth the delay for him.

Lou did all the shopping ahead of time (what a champ!) and had everything laid out and ready to go when Debbie and I got there. All I had to do was remember to bring the onions. And with a reminder e-mail from him just before I had to leave, I couldn’t fail! Lou ran our caponata making like a 5 star chef runs a restaurant kitchen. He had us dicing, slicing and sautéing while he directed us around his kitchen from drawers to cabinets. In no time, caponata was simmering and we had time to show Debbie Lou’s garden, his “pride and joy.”

We left Lou with clean dishes, sparkling counters, a pot simmering on the stove and a promise to come back to help pack up. As I left, we counted all the foods we’ve made together – tortellini, ravioli, mozzarella, empanadas and now caponata – and we wondered what would be next. I know whatever it will be is sure to be delicious and full of fun making it together.

PS
I happened to taste test Whole Foods caponata yesterday in their prepared food section. Two things to note: it’s not nearly as good as ours and it’s a whole lot more expensive! Since it sells for $7.99 a pound, it would cost $80.00 to buy the amount we made. Lou and I spent $13.00 each (about $26.00 total) on our ingredients.

Caponata
Makes 5 quarts
Lou’s Recipe By: Leslie Ficaro

Olive oil
4 pounds eggplant, cubed
3 large onions, thinly sliced
8 ribs celery, thinly sliced
1 quart large green olives, pitted (we used olives marinated in garlic)
1 cup small capers, rinsed
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 large can whole tomatoes, chopped
1 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup golden raisins, whole
Slivered almonds, toasted for serving

Sautee eggplant in batches until browned. Drain in a colander. Sautee onions and celery until tender do not brown. Add tomatoes olives, capers, tomato paste vinegar, sugar and raisin. Stir in eggplant and cook for one half hour. Cool and refrigerate.
When serving top with toasted almonds