Green Lentil Soup

This week we are visiting Greece!

Home of feta cheese, super cool mythology, and, um, that village with the blue tiled roofs...I clearly do not know much about Greece. Gosh Melissa, learn a book! Oh wait! I know something else: Melissa is Greek for honeybee.

So anyway, we are visiting Greece. Why did I choose Greece? Because it was the first cookbook I pulled out of my cookbook drawer. Actually, it was the second but the first one I pulled out was about New Orleans and last time I checked, New Orleans is not a country. Sorry NOLA. The cookbook I'm using this week is "Taste of Greece: Irresistible Dishes of the Sun-Soaked Eastern Mediterranean" by Joanna Farrow and Jacqueline Clarke.

As you can tell from the pic, I paid a whopping $3.98 for it at Half Price Books so it's definitely legit. I've had this book for years and have made a few things from it but this week I'm trying recipes I haven't made before.

Which is why we are making Green Lentil Soup. I was going to make a chicken pie but I forgot to thaw out the chicken and the pastry. Also, I took my kids to Chuck e Cheese (where a kid can be a kid! And parents wonder why they thought procreating was a good idea!) for two hours and I was tired and wanted something easy.

The ingredients

1 cup green lentils. I always soak my beans before I use them. If I can remember, I'll soak them overnight but if not (which happens a lot) I try to do two to three hours beforehand. Supposedly it helps with nutrient absorption but I think it mostly cuts down cooking time. 

5 tbsp olive oil

3 onions, finely chopped. I used one onion because I didn't want a lot of heartburn. Getting older is so cool.

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced. According to Martha Stewart, goddess of everything (maybe not financial planning), you should crush garlic cloves before cutting them because crushing them releases oils, which makes your dishes more flavorful. I'm not one to argue with Martha Stewart (the lady breeds Chow Chows) so I crushed my garlic AND THEN thinly sliced it.

2 tsp cumin seeds, crushed. I just used ground cumin cause, same thing, right?

1/4 tsp ground tumeric

2.5 cups chicken or veggie stock. I used chicken. I like the Kitchen Basics brand a lot. It's moderately priced and I think Emeril said it's the best stock that he didn't make himself. Which I find odd since he had his own brand of stock...whatevs, I use Kitchen Basics. BAM!

Salt and ground pepper to taste

2 tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander. I didn't use this because do you know what coriander is? It's cilantro. Do you know what cilantro is? It's the devil. I don't like the devil so no cilantro. 

There are no bananas in this recipe, I just forgot to clean my counter before taking the pic.

Now to cooking!

I should also mention that I didn't use exact measurements. I cook enough to know what a teaspoon or half a tablespoon looks like so I don't bother measuring unless I'm baking. #humblebrag

Put the lentils in cold water and boil , rapidly, for ten minutes and then drain. They should look like this when done. 

Heat the oil in a pan and fry two of the onions with the garlic, cumin, and tumeric for three minutes. By the way, your kitchen will smell amazing from the fried onions! Someone should make it into an air freshener. I would buy so many of those things. I'd also probably always be hungry.

Add the lentils, stock, and 2.5 cups of water. Hey! The water wasn't in the ingredient list! Oh wells, it happens. Bring to a boil, reduce, cover, and simmer for thirty minutes. If you soaked the lentils, you won't need the full thirty. 

The recipe says to fry the third onion until golden. You'll use this and the coriander as a topping. 

When the lentils are done, mash them slightly to make it pulpy. Nothing says "delicious" like the word pulpy. #needsaneditor

Season the pulpy soup with salt and pepper and if you hate yourself, garnish with the onion and coriander. No judgement. (There is a TON of judgement)

I didn't mash my lentils as much as the picture because one of my kids was screaming at me while I was mashing them and I didn't get to finish. Overall, it came out good. I mean, it's lentil soup, nothing fancy there. The recipe said to serve with warm bread but I didn't have warm bread so I served it with some super fancy Ritz crackers. I just Googled "the history of Ritz crackers" and they are not Greek, they originated in Philly.  I'm sure if the Greeks could have, they would have invented Ritz crackers but they were probably too busy creating a democratic government. They totally missed out.

Everyone loved it except the three year old. She took one look and said "It yuck" and just ate the crackers. She didn't throw it on the ground so that was great. The dogs ate up whatever the one and half year old dropped on the ground and they seemed to like it, too. Success!