Lentil veggie and garden leek soup with pesto butter and homemade bread

These pictures are from December 1. We took out all the basil and peppers and some of the leeks, and spaced out the other leeks better. The basil went into a pesto butter with garlic, butter, and almonds. The leeks went into a lentil veggie soup. We served the dinner with white wine and homemade whole wheat baguette.

Summer soup for the Harvest Moon

Tonight we were treated to a once-in-three-decades event: a full moon on night of the Autumn Equinox. Every year, the Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the equinox, but this year "closest" means "five and a half hours" rather than "ten days".

We began by making a hearty whole-wheat bread. Combine three cups whole wheat flour, one tablespoon wheat gluten, two teaspoons salt, and one tablespoon yeast. Also mix in one cup cooked wheat berries. Our flour and berries are from the always excellent Massa Organics, and after tonight's bread, we need to buy more of both. Then slowly add about one and a half cups water, mixing while you go. Knead a little bit and let the dough sit for a few hours. Bake the bread for about fifty minutes if you make it all into just one loaf, and let cool ten to twenty minutes before slicing.

Our soup was really more of a vegetable stew. Begin by sauteing half a red onion and some garlic in salted olive oil. Then add two bunches turnips, thinly sliced, and three quarters cup wine and six cups water, and adjust the salt. Bring to a boil and add one cup dried French green lentils. The lentils should cook a total of about thirty minutes, so take a short break and do dishes.

In a separate fry-pan or wok, heat some olive oil into which you have ground some black pepper. When the oil is hot, fry about half a pound thinly-sliced summer squash. Add the squash to the soup.

Also add the corn cut off of two or three ears, and one bunch greens (some quick-cooking kind: red chard, which is what we used, is particularly pretty; alternately, use the greens from the turnips if they are still fresh). Cook about ten minutes while you finish setting the table. Right before serving the soup, stir in two very fresh heirloom tomatoes, cut into wedges.

Serve the soup with the whole-wheat bread, butter for the bread, grated grana padamo for the soup, and a chilled white wine.

Saag paneer and dal

Begin by mincing a fair amount of garlic, ginger, and turmeric. Also dice a very large white onion. Separate the onion into two pots, and saute with a little butter and salt until tender, adding in the spices as soon as the onion begins to release its juices. Add also a fair amount of curry powder to each pot.

To the smaller of the two pots, add a cup of red lentils, and about a cup and a half of water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook twenty to thirty minutes until the lentils are very soft. Stir it occasionally and check to make the lentils are not sticking, replenishing the water as necessary.

To the larger pot, add the washed, sliced greens from a bunch of beets and also a bunch of rainbow chard (remove most of the stems). Put the greens in a bit wet. Cover the pot, and steam the greens until they have reduced; stir them into the soft onions. Cube a brick of paneer or haloumi into and mix into the juices, watching as the turmeric stains the cheese yellow. Open a two-cup tub of sour cream, and mix in a lot of curry powder and a lot of cumin. Stir the sour cream into the greens.

Serve both dishes warm and a bit gloopy.

Two curries

I'm back in Aarhus, of course, which means cooking for myself, and that seems to mean curry.

For example, sauté leeks in olive oil and a little salt, and add some powdered ginger. Add one head broccoli, cut into small pieces, and cook a little; then add one can coconut milk, a splash of soy sauce, a small spoonful of red curry paste, some chopped lemongrass, and a small bag of frozen shrimp, and bring to a boil. Mix in the juice of one lime, and serve over rice.

Alternately, sauté leeks in a mix of butter and olive oil and a little salt, and add a lot of curry powder and a little ginger. Then add 6 oz dried lentils and 10 oz water, or so, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Add one head (chopped) of whatever brassica you have lying around — I bought what I thought was kale, and perhaps is, but is somewhere between an American kale and a cabbage (they are the same species, after all) — and some more salt and spice. Let the mixture simmer covered for twenty minutes, until most of the liquid has cooked off or been absorbed, and then serve over rice.

Saag, dhal, and a painting

Our first night back in Berkeley we made saag (onions, garlic, and spices; kale and spinach; sour cream) and dhal (onions, garlic, and spices; lentils and vegetable broth). Everything was a little bland — use more spices than you think you need — but comfort-food-y.



The painting in the background is a beautiful and humongous rose my sister made for us. She's quite an artist, and we have a number of her paintings up around the house. The apple pears are from my parents' trees.

February 4: Dhal and Saag Paneer

Lentil, mushroom, and barley soup

The soup was simple enough: carrots, celery, and onions sauteed in olive oil, then homemade vegetable stock, mushrooms, dried lentils, barley, and finish with tomatoes. What made the meal stand out was the Tomme Crayeuse cheese, served crumbled on top of the soup. We had asked at Cheeseboard for a cheese to serve with lentil soup; we were given the perfect one.

Garlic mashed potatoes, Lentils, and Steamed broccoli and cauliflower with vegetable broth

A few nights ago, we had an impromptu dinner party here. I like those: they mean I get to show off my cooking skills. Try to cook everything at the same time.

Dice a green onion (saving outer layer for soup stock) and a small head of fennel (saving greens for stock), and sauté in olive oil, with some salt. Add and continue to sauté chopped (washed, but no need to peel) tokyo turnip roots. Add two cups green lentils, two cups veggie stock, and two cups water. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, and cover. Wash and chop a few carrots (saving greens, head, and tail, and skins if they need peeling, for stock, of course), and add to the lentils. Wash and chop a head of yellow chard, and stir into lentils five minutes before serving.

Meanwhile, wash and dice (but do not peel) a couple pounds of blue potatoes. Cover with salted water, bring to boil, and simmer covered at least ten minutes. Meanwhile, dice a stalk of green garlic, and sauté in olive oil with some ground black pepper. When potatoes are done, drain in a sieve, return to pan with garlic oil, and mash, adding a tablespoon or two of butter. Blue potatoes have a particularly good taste, but tend to be very dry when mashing, so they need lots of butter (as opposed to, say, german butterballs, which are very moist). They will unfortunately lose much of their color to a lovely grey.

Meanwhile, pick out small heads of purple cauliflower and romanesco broccoli. Slice carefully in quarters or halves from tip to stem, retaining the leaves. Expect one half or quarter of broccoli and one of cauliflower per person. Layer in the steamer, with the purple cauliflower on the bottom (otherwise the purple will drip onto the lightly green broccoli). Steam until tender, and remove carefully, arranging alternating in a nice bowl. Pour over them half a cup of heated vegetable broth.

Lentils and rice, with beet greens and olive oil

I've made this very simple meal before, and always enjoy it. When you want a no-trouble meal for a quiet dinner alone, I highly recommend it.

In a small pot with a well-fitting lid, combine half a cup brown rice, half a cup green lentils, and two cups of home-made vegetable broth. Cover, bring to boil, reduce to simmer, and cook for fifty minutes. (Lentils take only thirty, but the rice should not be crunchy; I had crunchy rice tonight.)

Near the end of cooking time (water should have been completely absorbed; check the pot occasionally, adding more water or removing the lid and turning up the heat as necessary), wash a bunch of beets greens (removed from the beets). Beets from Farmers' Market tend to be covered in dirt — if you don't remove this well, your food can pick up an undesired texture. (I did not wash my beet greens well tonight.) Chop the greens roughly into one-inch squares, and stir into rice-and-lentils. Cook, covered, a few more minutes, until greens have turned a brilliant green and reduced slightly in volume.

Remove from heat, and salt-and-pepper to taste. I like lots of salt (we don't salt out vegetable broth, preferring to salt the final product), but I'm not a particular fan of pepper. Toss in some high-quality extra-virgin olive oil — we have been using the delicious and fruity "Olio Extra Vergine di Oliva" by Oleificio Chianti (based in Moticchiello di Pienza, Siena), the same as is used at Chez Panisse (where my roommates' cousin works).