Welcome to spanel.com

Cool and damp yesterday; a perfect day for hot soup. I hadn’t tried this before, but I had a quantity of my veggie soup in the fridge, and a pound of lentils at hand.

• Clean and wash 1 lb of lentils
• Cook the lentils in a deep soup pot according to package directions until tender. The great thing about lentils is this only takes 20 minutes or so.
• Drain the cooked lentils, reserving the gravy
• Put the lentils back in the soup pot and cover with 6-8 cups of veggie soup. Add back lentil gravy until the  mix is as “soupy” as you like.
• Heat through. Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Simmer for 5 minutes or so for flavors to blend.

That’s it – ready to eat. Garnishes or accompaniments that sound good to me:

• chopped red onion
• chopped parsley
• fresh grated Parmesan, Romano, or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses
• Bruschettas

Some time ago Cousin Ardyce told us about The Amazing Soup. It’s become a go-to item around here (we use it as the basis for many other dishes), but I modify the recipe substantially. That said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the original, and you can’t go wrong making either version (but mine is better – ha). Continue reading → Post ID 337

We make big batches of these and freeze them for when we don’t feel like cooking or to travel with.

Unwrap them and after a few minutes in the microwave (make sure you get all the aluminium off first or your microwave may turn into Old Sparky!) we have a hot meal we can feel good about – these are real food. Continue reading → Post ID 337

A friend asked about “tasty veggie recipes”, so I thought I’d put together a quickie on how we get vegetables into our diet every day.

• Number one is The Amazing Soup – but I modify the recipe heavily:
  • way less carrots – they’re starchy and high carb
  • at least a dozen garlic cloves. I have never found an upper limit.
  • no chicken broth (canned broth – yuck)
  • greens – kale, Swiss chard, collard greens, baby bok choy (my favorite) instead of cabbage
  • we make big batches that become the basis for several other dishes.
  • It freezes well, so you can always have some around.
• I try to add multiple vegetables to every morning scramble or frittata – onions, garlic, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage – whatever’s laying around in the house.
• We eat a lot of steamed cruciferous veggies:
  • Brussels sprouts
  • Cauliflower
  • Broccoli
• Whole beets – roasted, steamed
• Beet greens – blanched
• Squashes – roasted or baked

Steamed / roasted veggies we eat either with salt / pepper and a drizzle of olive or with a little mayonnaise.

If I’m feeling up to it, I’ll stir fry veggies with olive oil and garlic or sesame oil, ginger and garlic.

That’s about it for “daily veggies”. I’m always watching for something else appealing.

I subscribe in my reader to Cranky Fitness where I got this recipe for sweet potato chili.

This inspired me to create my own version, which is a lot less wimpy – to wit:

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 8-10 garlic cloves in little pieces – pressed, minced or microplaned
• 3-4 tbsp good chili powder
• 3-4 tbsp cumin powder
• 2 tbsp dried oregano leaves. If you have fresh, use way more and add at the end of cooking.
• 12 oz of good beer, ale, stout, porter, something with some taste. If you’re thinking Bud Lite, just use water instead.
• 2 tsp Cousin Neil’s habanero powder. You can skip this if you use the seeds from the jalapenos…
• 1 large onion chopped; 2 large wouldn’t hurt.
• 6 or more jalapenos, seeded and chopped. Substitute any hot pepper you have around but be aware jalapenos run to the mild compared to many others.
• 1-2 sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and cubed to 1/2 inch or so
• 2 1-lb cans of tomatoes, chopped, riced, whatever, with juice
• 4-6 cups of pinto beans with the bean gravy; best cooked fresh. If commercially canned, drain and rinse to get rid of the gacky, salty packing brine. Then think hard about why you’re using commercially canned beans when it’s so easy to cook them from scratch.
• 2 cups of corn kernels. If you have fresh, wow, otherwise use frozen or drained canned kernels. Go wild with the fresh corn and cook it in the husk on the BBQ first and then cut off the cob. Yum.
• I’ve also added 5-6 cups of chopped fresh spinach to the mix – a big health boost and can’t even taste it. Add at the end with the beans and corn.

In a large, thick soup pot – heat the olive oil over medium (olive oil will burn if too hot!), add the garlic and heat until golden. Add the cumin, chili, habanero and enough of the beer to swell the spices. It will be too dry on olive oil alone. 

Add the onion, jalapenos and sweet potato. Moisten with beer and saute until the onion is tender.

Add the tomatoes and the rest of the beer. Add water if needed to make it soupy, not stewy. Simmer for 15-20 minutes to soften the tomatoes.

Add the beans, corn and fresh oregano if you have it; heat and simmer for at least 10-15 more minutes.

Serve and garnish with grated cheese, chopped onion, cilantro. A good cold beer (or two) with this won’t suck.