January 24th, 2012

Still on my quest for trying lots and lots of new recipes.  I had a dud (in my opinion).  It was a Mushroom Stroganoff.

Bland, brown, and too mushroomy.  That’s all I got to say about that.

I really thought I had another night of a dud, especially when I saw the finished product.  Definitely not a wow factor or ta da type of presentation. Trent came home, looked at dinner, and had to suppress a stinky sock face.

It is a lentil and spinach soup with cumin.  It came from a cookbook without pictures.  If it had pictures, I might have skipped over it.  Now my lesson is learned, because it was pretty tasty.  Even the kids liked it and ate 75% of their serving without begging, coaxing, bribing.  I served it with greek yogurt and tons of chives.  Crushed tortilla chips would be good on top too.  Apparently this is a fairly popular Lebanese/Middle Eastern type of soup. 

Here’s the recipe, easy stuff.

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 onions, sliced

4 garlic cloves, sliced

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon cumin (I doubled that)

1 pound of green or brown lentils

5 cups vegetable stock (I used chicken stock)

6 1/2 cups spinach

freshly squeezed lemon juice

salt and pepper

green yogurt and chives to serve

Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add onions, garlic, and spices, cook about 10 minutes until softened.  Add the lentils and and stir for 1-2 minutes to mix everything.  Add the stock, bring to boil, then simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the spinach and stir until fully wilted.  Use emersion blender and puree.  You can puree the whole thing or half, just what you prefer.  No emersion blender?  Transfer half of the soup to a food processor and return to saucepan.

I pureed the whole thing so I didn’t have to answer too many questions about what was in the soup to the kids, which actually worked.  Both of my girls love chili, so they thought it was some variation of that when the house smelled like cumin.  I think Trent was pleasantly surprise, but had LOW LOW expectations.  I liked it and would make it again, mainly because it’s so darn healthy, meat free, and the entire family ate it without torturous looks.