It's 2 a.m. and I should be asleep.
Such is the way of things.
Our Take on Middle-Eastern Lentil Soup
There is a fantastic restaurant in Kansas City called Aladdin Cafe. They serve wonderful food - we usually get a couple of their feasts and just pig out on hummus, falafel, a mix of meats and more. My eldest always requests the lentil soup, which is lemony and oh, so savory. We all love it - well, everyone except the five-year-old who loves three things and nothing more in life - chocolate milk, ramen, and mac & cheese. But hey, someday we might get her to eat a vegetable... maybe.
And as fall finally made an appearance, some two weeks later than normal, yesterday (while bright and sunny) was my first opportunity to make soup. It's become a tradition in our house that once fall hits, I'm cooking up soups - at least one a week, sometimes more. This lasts until the snows give way to cool, rainy spring mornings - and by that time everyone is well and thoroughly sick of soup.
I could go on and on, that's what all the food bloggers do. But you know what? I find that super-annoying, especially when I just want the damned recipe. So here it is, lentil soup - Shuck style!
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups lentils
8 cups chicken stock (I use 8 cups water & 8 cubes of chicken bouillon)
1 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried parsley
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 large red potatoes, chopped into bite-size pieces
1/2 package of smoked sausage (approx 1/2 pound), quartered and sliced
Directions:
In a 4 quart stock pot, add the oil, onions, and garlic and saute over medum-high heat until tender. Add turmeric and cumin, then the 8 cups of chicken stock and lentils.
Brown the sausage and set aside.
Keep the stock pot at medium-high heat and boil for 20 minutes before adding chopped potatoes. Boil for another 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are tender. Blend with an immersion blender (I do just a handful of pulses, leaving most of the lentils and potatoes intact).
Add the lemon juice and parsley and browned sausage. and check the lentils. If still "toothy" turn heat to medium low, cover, and cook for another 15 minutes.
I love the lemony taste of the soup. The recipe I had found for lentil soup originally called for 1/2 a lemon, or around 1 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice, but I think the 3 Tbsp (or one lemon) is perfect. A nice, crusty French bread goes great with this. Or even a dollop of hummus and veggies on the side. Enjoy!
Projects
Well, as with my post earlier this month, Project Baby is the primary mode of the day. That said, I've turned my sights to working on getting the War's End omnibus ready for sale. I am running it through ProWriting Aid and already have a book cover for the three books done and ready to go. I hope to have that done and up on Amazon and other ebook retailing sites by the end of this week.
After that? Hmmm... we will see. I'm going to be doing some goal-setting this week as we work our way into a decent waking/sleeping schedule with His Majesty. He will be six weeks old on Tuesday!
Stay well, fellow humans. Cook soup, hug each other, and I hope to provide updates on current and future projects soon. Who knows, maybe I'll focus on getting some of these darned audiobooks recorded!
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