Thai Curry Lentil Stew (see, I do more than just bake)

Looking through my blog posts I realized that almost everything I've posted so far has been baked goods (everything but one, measly soup recipe without a picture because I hand lost my camera). This is in part because I absolutely love baking. Oh, whipping up dinner can be fun too but there is nothing quite like the feel of soft dough between my fingers, or the smell of bread in the oven, or the taste of a chocolate chip cookie eaten off of a hot baking sheet. Even so, this doesn't mean that I don't cook. On the contrary, I cook myself dinner just about every night. The reason I haven't posted anything about it however is that, to be honest, my dinners are usually pretty boring. When I go home for breaks I'll often experiment with more complicated recipes but here in Berkeley, in my massive, out of control kitchen, on a school night, dinner has just three specifications that it has to meet.

a. It has to be healthy
b. It has to taste good
c. It has to come together with no more that 1 hour spent in the kitchen, total, that includes chopping, peeling, slicing, dicing and anything else I might have to do for prep.

Usually dinner ends up being a one pot meal, full of flavor and utterly lacking in eye appeal or method of preparation. Now, a very common one-pot meal for me is lentil soup (my staple recipe is Heidi Swanson's over 101 cookbooks). It's a nutritional powerhouse. You can mix any number of things into it, put any number of toppings on top of it, and spice it up any way you like. Best of all, it usually comes together in all of 20 minutes and it's a pretty hard dish to ruin. The flip side to that is, it's also a pretty hard dish to make exciting.

That is until (drum roll please)... I discovered this recipe. This was lentil soup as I'd never seen it before and to be entirely honest, I was a bit suspicious. The ingredients didn't quite seem as though they'd go together all that well. But the author's praise was so enthusiastic and the pictures so warm and delicious looking on this very cold day that, despite my doubts, I decided to try it out, with some alterations of course. I am very glad I did. This is my ideal one pot meal. Spicy from the jalapeno and curry paste, sweet from the sweet potato, sour from the lime, and earthy from the lentils. I adapted my creation quite a bit from the original recipe and so I'm presenting my version here.



Thai Curry Lentil Stew

oil for sauteing
3 large cloves garlic
1 yellow onion-minced
1 1/2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1 fresh jalapeno finely chopped (seeds left in if you like spice, or if you're weird like me, de-seed half of it)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dried lentils (I used french lentils and would recommend you do to as they cook quickly and maintain their shape)
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch dice
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (juice included)
2 cups water
1/2 cup minced cilantro (you can use parsley if you absolutely hate cilantro, or you can just leave it out entirely)
juice from 1/2 of a lime
yogurt, additional lime, and/or cilantro sprigs for topping (optional)

Heat a large pot on medium heat. Saute the garlic, onion, curry paste, ginger, jalapeno and salt until onions become translucent. Add lentils, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and water. Cover and simmer over medium head 20 to 30 minutes or until the lentils are tender and the sweet potatoes are soft. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro and lime juice. Serve with additional lime juice, cilantro, and yogurt as desired.

Marvelous Spicy Bean and Veggie Soup

Ok, so, it turns out I am a horrendous blogger. That's not entirely true, I've certainly been cooking a lot, and I've certainly been thinking of blogging but due to an enormous amount of school work that suddenly piled up on my head and a mysteriously missing camera, I haven't actually gotten around to writing anything. While the camera is still missing my blog will be tragically devoid of pictures, but I hope you'll trust me when I assure you that the recipes are truly amazing.

First up is a soup recipe. It started out sanely enough, I decided I wanted soup and so I picked up Veganomicon, which has quickly become one of my favorite cookbooks, and decided on a black bean-vegetable soup. The only problem was, the more I looked at the recipe the more I wanted to change it. First I wanted pinto instead of black beans, then I wanted sweet potato instead of bell pepper, and how about some different spices too? Pretty soon my soup looked almost nothing like the original and the only thing left to do was try it. Luckily, the soup actually tasted amazing, slightly spicy with a bit of sweet from the sweet potato and carrot and just a tad creamy from the pinto beans. Overall, marvelous, this is definitely one that I'll be recreating. And now, without further ado, here is the recipe (needless to say, you can change it upto suit your tastes).

Melody's Anything Goes Soup

Olive oil for sautéing

4 cloves garlic minced

2 small onions chopped finely

1 carrot (Sliced 1/2 to 1/4 inch thick)

1 rib celery (Sliced 1/2 to 1/4 inch thick)

1 sweet potato (Cut into 1/2 inch cubes)

1 ½ tsp cumin

1 tsp thyme

2 tsp oregano

2 tsp salt

2 bay leaves

1 ½ tbsp hot sauce

4-5 cups veggie broth (four will give you more of a stew-like consistency)

1 14oz can tomatoes

1 14oz can pinto beans

1 ear corn

Sauté the garlic for approximately 30 seconds until it begins to sizzle. Add in the Onion and sauté until it becomes soft and almost translucent. Add in the celery, sweet potato, and carrot, sauté until the carrot begins to soften. Add in the spices and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add in the beans, tomatoes, broth, hot sauce, salt and corn. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until the veggies are soft and the flavors have blended.