Delicious!  That’s how this Green Lentil Soup with Curried Brown Butter tastes.  Just delicious!

I hadn’t planned on cooking anything yesterday evening.  I was tired.  Then someone complained about being hungry.   I remembered this recipe from 101 Cookbooks and thankfully had all the ingredients – well almost all the ingredients, except the chives and broth.  My soup still tasted really good. 

The instructions say to puree the lentils soup with an immersion blender.  I don’t have an immersion blender and I really couldn’t be bothered trying to putting the lentils in a regular blender.  Too much work.  Remember it’s me.  I like easy and simple.   No fuss.  Besides, I like the texture and bite of the whole lentils in my mouth.  I was happy with the outcome of my soup.  It was perfect for a cold day and is definitely a perfect meal for cold New Year’s Day.  

I don’t believe this specific soup is a customary good luck meal but it contains lentils, which are traditional symbols of good luck (they represent money)  in many countries.  So, I consider this a perfect meal to enjoy at the start of the New Year.  I like that.  May the New Year 2012 be a good year for all of us. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012, everyone!

Peace, love, hope, joy, good heath, and prosperity,

Paz

Green Lentil Soup with Curried Brown Butter

from 101 Cookbooks

You can use either green lentils of green split peas here. Both are delicious, but the green split peas tend to lend a brighter green color to the soup.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, ghee, or extra-virgin coconut oil?
1 large yellow onion, chopped
?3 cloves garlic, chopped?
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
?5 1/2 cups / 1.3 liters good-tasting vegetable broth or water

1 1/2 cups / 10.5 oz / 300 g green lentils or green split peas, picked over and rinsed

3 tablespoons unsalted butter?
1 tablespoon Indian curry powder
?1/2 cup / 125 ml coconut milk
?Fine-grain sea salt?
1 bunch fresh chives, minced

small cubes of pan-fried paneer (optional)

Combine the 2 tablespoons butter, onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes in a large soup pot over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the onions soften, a couple minutes. Add the vegetable broth and lentils and simmer, covered, until the lentils are tender. This usually takes 20 to 30 minutes, but can take as long as 50 minutes.??

In the meantime, warm the 3 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and let it brown. When it starts to smell nutty and fragrant, stir in the curry powder and sauté until the spices are fragrant, less than a minute.??When the lentils are finished cooking, remove from the heat, stir in the coconut milk and 1/4 teaspoon salt, and puree with an immersion blender. You can leave the soup a bit chunky if you like, or puree until it is perfectly smooth.

Stir in half of the spiced butter, taste, and add more salt, if needed, typically a couple of teaspoons if you used water instead of a salted broth. Serve drizzled with the remaining spice butter and sprinkled with chives, (and paneer cubes if you’re using them).??

Serves 4 to 6??

Prep time: 5 min – Cook time: 45 min

A funny thing happened on the way to the oven to bake this bread. 

I saw this Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread recipe on mischief mari’s blog.   The idea of how the flavors of the main ingredients would taste intrigued me.   Lemon, pineapple and zucchini?  Together?   Hmm… I don’t know about that.   Would it really taste good?  I wanted to know and set out to make my bread.

Following the instructions, I put all the ingredients together.  As I mixed the batter and looked at it, I kept thinking to myself, “Hmm… I don’t see any green.”  The batter was the normal pale yellow.  I could have sworn that I’d used all the ingredients, so I dismissed my thoughts and poured the light-colored batter into the baking pan. 

After I put the batter in the oven, I started cleaning up.   I washed the bowls, measuring cups, spoons… and put them away.  I wiped the sink and stove top and looked around the kitchen to see if I’d missed any other dirty dishes.  That’s when I saw the two cups of zucchini, patiently waiting to be mixed into the batter.  Yikes!   I’d forgotten one of the main ingredients of the bread!  Fer cryin’ out loud!  I chastised myself.  This recipe is called Lemon Pineapple ZUCCHINI Bread NOT Lemon Pineapple Bread.    I, quickly, pulled out the hot bread pan and placed it on the stovetop.  By this time, the bread had been baking for about 10 minutes.   It hadn’t taken shape yet, so I mixed the zucchini into the heated batter, returned the pan to the oven, and prayed that I wasn’t too late to save the bread. 

My Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread did not turn out nicely.   The zucchini didn’t spread in the batter and stayed mainly on the top.  The rest of the bread had baked properly but the zucchini portion of the bread didn’t bake all the way through.  I returned the loaf into the oven.   The top portion of the bread never completely baked, while the rest of the bread became over-baked and even turned too dry.  What a mess!  We ate pieces of the bread but no one wanted to finish it.

The next day, I was determined to try again.   Luckily I had extra zucchini and pineapple to use.   I put the ingredients together, attentively, and placed them in the oven.   Voila!  A perfect Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread loaf.  I’m happy to write that we were able to eat and enjoy this second loaf of bread.  The lemon, pineapple and zucchini taste good together.  Mari’s description was accurate, "It’s got a nice, light, slightly zingy flava.  So yum."  Yup!  Delicious.  The bread tasted perfect with a nice, hot cup of tea, Ovaltine or hot chocolate.

 Morals of my story:   1- Don’t bake (or cook) if you’re tired or pre-occupied.   2- If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. 

Thanks Mari, for the recipe.  By the way, folks:  Mari has a recently published book called the coolest cookies on the planet.  It’s a gem of a book!  I enjoyed reading her stories that inspired some of her cookie designs.  Her baking and design tutorials are easy to follow (I like easy!) and the photos are absolutely fantastic.   Check it out HERE. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!  I wish you all a wonderful celebration.

Paz

My first bread did NOT turn out well.  Portions were unbaked.  So, I tried again.

Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread

as seen on  cha no ma-ri

original recipe from Feral Kitchen

3 c. all purpose flour
1 1/4 c. sugar
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
2/3 c. canola oil
1 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple, drained well. (I found fresh pineapple at my local store. Chopped it up in with a super sharp kitchen knife. Perfect).
2 c. zucchini grated
1 Tbls. lemon zest

Directions:

Mari’s recommendations:

*I recommends having your zucchini grated, your pineapple crushed and your lemon zested BEFORE you start. Just makes the combining of all ingredients easier. Grate the zucchini with the grating blade on a food processor because it’ll take you ages if you do this by hand.  And I sure hope you have a super sharp microplane zester because dull ones are no fun.

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Grab two 4″ X 8″ baking pans and grease well.
2. In a medium-sized bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, pineapple, zucchini and lemon zest.
4. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Mix until moistened.  Do not over mix. This will look like a thick cake batter, and that is okay, it’s supposed to be that way.
5. Add the mixture to the two baking pans and bake for 1 hour.
6. Cool on wire racks then remove loaves from pans.  Makes two fabulous loaves.

A fabulous loaf of Lemon Pineapple Zucchini Bread!

Riverside park, a few days after the blizzard.

I wish everyone all the very best for the new year!

Paz

Black-eyed peas soaking in water

Last year, I didn’t cook much but the start of the New Year found me preparing my first meal of the year.   That’s a good start to 2010, huh?   I think so. 

I find it interesting that depending on the country or culture, certain foods, when eaten at New Year’s, are considered to bring good luck.  The traditions may be different but the foods and the beliefs in the type of luck they bring are similar, worldwide.  The foods range from cakes, grapes, fish, pork, greens to legumes.  Here are a few examples of what’s eaten all over the world:

Special cakes are made between Christmas and New Year’s:  In Greece, it’s vasilopita, a cake baked with a hidden coin; in Mexico, it’s a rosca de reyes, a ring-shaped cake, baked with surprises and decorated with candied fruit; in Scotland, it’s a black bun, a type of fruit cake; in Italy, it’s chiacchiere, honey-drenched fried pasta dough balls. dusted with powdered sugar; in the Netherlands, Hungary and Poland, they are donuts; in Holland, it’s ollie bollen, puffy donut-like pastries filled with apples, currants and raisins.  I’ve wanted to make ollie bollens for the longest time.  Perhaps that’s what I’ll make next year.

Grapes (12 grapes — one for each stroke of the clock) are eaten just before midnight in countries such as Spain, Portugal, Peru, Venezuala, Mexico, Ecuador and Cuba. 

Pork generally stands for progress, wealth and prosperity.  In one form or another, it’s served in the U.S., Italy, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Cuba and Portugal. 

Legumes such as beans, peas and lentils represent money. Brazilians eat lentil and rice or lentil soup; while Germans eat split pea soup with sausage or lentils with sausage; Japanese eat sweet black beans called kuro-mame.  Italians eat cotechino con lenticchie (a large spiced sausage and green lentils).  One New Year, I actually made cotechino con lenticchie.  It was good.

Greens such as kale, collards, cabbage and chard (because their leaves are thought to look like folded money) also symbolize financial wealth.   Germans eat cabbage (sauerkraut); Danes eat kale (stewed and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon); while American southerners eat collard greens.

I learned from Stephen Cooks  and Christine Cooks  about the southern American tradition of eating black-eyed peas (normally with cornbread, rice, ham and collard greens).  After doing a little bit of reading, I found out that this practice of eating black-eyed peas started with Sephardi Jews in the 1730s in Georgia.  Around the time of the American Civil War, non-Jews later followed this custom.   Very interesting!

Using Stephen’s recipe, I decided to make Black-eyed pea soup.  My soup turned out well and tasted very good.  I ended up making it two days in a row because a certain picky eater in my household liked it so much.  The only changes from the original recipe was that I didn’t use ham hocks and instead of garnishing the soup with scallions, I used cilantro.  Actually I first used the scallions but preferred cilantro.  My soup tasted really good.  To insure extra luck, I made sure to have an extra serving of my black-eyed pea soup.     

May we all have lots of luck this New Year.

Paz
 

Black-eyed pea soup with a healthy squirt of hot sauce.  

Black-eyed Pea Soup

Yield: 8 one-cup servings
Steven Cooks

Ingredients

8 oz dried black-eyed peas

1 strip bacon, cut in small pieces

1 medium onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 carrot, peeled and chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 celery rib, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 sweet red pepper, chopped (about 1/4 cup)

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

Hambone or smoked ham hocks (optional)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Salt and hot sauce, to taste

Method

1. Inspect the peas to be sure there are no stones included (most beans are mechanically processed and there are occasional inclusions). Soak them overnight, then drain and rinse well.

2. Sauté the bacon slowly in a skillet until just starting to crisp. Remove to a side plate. 

3. In the bacon pan, slowly sauté the onion, carrot, celery and sweet red pepper until the onion is translucent.

4. Place the peas, bacon, vegetables, thyme, red pepper flakes and hambone or hocks (if using) in a slow cooker or soup pot. Add about 6 cups water. The peas should be at least covered by the water. Cook at a slow simmer for about 2 hours, until beans are tender. If you’re using the optional ham bone or hocks, skim fat from the surface occasionally.

5. Whisk the cornstarch into a cup of the soup broth and then stir into the soup. Cook another 15 minutes or so until the soup thickens. 

6. Correct seasoning.

Mmm… Mmm Good!

Finally!  A snow photo for you.      It snowed on New Year’s Eve.   The timing of the snowfall was very unexpected.   The newscasters had predicted rain first in the day and then snow later on.  However, that’s not what happened.  I suppose the snow was anxious to visit us and started falling around 8 in the morning.   It snowed all morning till late in the afternoon before stopping.   Hours later, it rained, so that there are only traces of snow the next day.

I want to wish you all a very blessed 2010.

Best,

Paz