New Home Remedies

Well, not surprisingly, after a blow out of indulging in many things I will be striking from my intake over the next few days and weeks; and staying out until 3:33 this morning drinking and carrying on with karoake cavorting and fond farewell felicitations to the fabulous Andrea, I have fallen ill.  Not surprising at all.  Oh well.

The other planned features are going on the back burner for now.  I see no reason to be slavish to chronology here.  Tonight in a bid to resuscitate my natural vigour I bought a carton of OJ and the fixin's to fortify with food.

First up, Lemony Red Lentil Soup with Cilantro courtesy of Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express.  A handy culinary guide I can only highly recommend.

You take yourself a chopped onion and cook it in olive oil in a fair sized saucepan until they're a bit soft.  No olive oil?  No worries.  I ran out too.  The recipe is plenty flavourful.  I used sunflower oil and could detect no loss of deliciousness.  Use whatever you have.

Once that's softened up nicely add one cup of red lentils.  No red lentils either?!  Geez, you better stock that larder.  Well then, if you've got green, brown, or yellow split peas they could work too.  I think red lentils work best though.  Lentils, by the way, if you're uninitiated to their wonders are super tasty satisfying, inexpensive, easy to cook, and a great source of protein and vitamins.

I think it is a good idea to dump them in there and stir them around so each little pulse gets a chance to be coated in oil.  I'm not sure why but it seems to work.  Go ahead and add four cups of chicken broth, or veggie if you prefer.  If you've got your own homemade all the better.  I myself have not yet ventured down that road so I just used this:

 I find these Chinese varieties of instant broth mix use a different suite of flavours and veggies in the mix that I rather like, but if you've Bovril or Knorr or what-have-you I say it all works.  I boil water in my electric kettle and dissolve the mix in my measuring cup before adding it to the pot.  I find that works well.  Go ahead and bring that to a boil and then turn things down and allow to simmer.

While that's going on blend yourself a handful of cilantro with a good dose of whatever oil you are using.  I use my handy dandy Braun mixer wand.  You can use a blender or food processor.  Or you could just chop the bejezzuz out of that cilantro and mix it in a bowl with the oil.

Throw in a bit of salt into the mix if you like too.  I still have the sacred sea salt on hand so I added a pinch.  Set that aside for now.

Mark recommends you puree only half the lentils, if at all, until smooth and then add them back to the pot.  I like things smoothy smooth so I puree the works.  Once again with my trusty blender wand.  I leave that option up to you.

Add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice and stir in the cilantro puree.  Give it a minute or two to melange and then taste it.  If it could use some more lemon add some in.  Adjust your seasonings if need be too.  I added a few grinds of fresh black pepper.

That's it!  This can be done in 20 minutes or less and tastes awesome.  Mark recommends serving with some crusty bread or a mound of rice in the center.  I made up some Curried Cumin Potatoes and some stir fried Garlic n' Ginger Broccoli Florets.  More about those later.  Now that I've chowed down and reported my exploits its time I got a good night's sleep.

That's the soup there in the left corner topped with a little chopped cilantro.  Honestly the food looks way better than these pictures.  For some reason my trusty cell phone cam is taking everything with a blue/grey filter effect.  <Sigh>, maybe I'll upgrade my 'high tech' equipment soon.  ;)