Soup, week four and five: carrot, quinoa and curried lentil. (And brilliant cornbread.)

We were out of town last weekend.  We ate a lot of delicious food, but we did not make or eat any soup.  So today to make up for it, we made a total mess of the kitchen... and two beautiful soups in the process.

One was a carrot soup I saw a few weeks ago and had been dying to try.  Smitten Kitchen, carrots, tahini, crisped chickpeas... there could not possibly be anything wrong with any of that.  Right?

there wasn't... not one single thing

The soup was like butter... like healthy, vitamin-C-filled, delicious butter you would eat with a spoon... and then go back for seconds... and possibly thirds if you didn't have another amazing soup in front of you.  The crisped chickpeas were a nice touch, and they are officially going to become a staple around here (on salads, in soups, in my hand about to be popped into my mouth, that sort of thing).

The other was a lentil and quinoa soup recipe I found at our lovely hostess's house last weekend. She's big on backpacking with tasty food, and we like to camp and hike with tasty food, so I perused her cookbook collection just looking for easy, me-friendly energy bars and that sort of thing.

I quickly realized I needed to own this cookbook at some point.  It features lots of gluten-free recipes and some really interesting soup ideas - many of which call for a bunch of dehydration and re-hydration (this is a backpacker cookbook, after all) but which also look like they would be just as wonderful without all that nonsense.  This was one of those recipes so I scribbled it down on the back of an envelope and recreated it tonight.

OK, he recreated it tonight.  Whatever.

mine = sans yogurt because of the quinoa
*SIGH*

Spicy and hearty and wholesome and amazing.

We both agreed that these two soups are our favorites so far, this quarter and also out of any other soups we have made this winter.  And we have made some wonderful soups.  Especially after two days this week of leftover aforementioned pumpkin corn soup that had been frozen and defrosted and reheated and still wowed me, all I can say is... that's saying a lot.

To round out the kitchen-mess-extravaganza I also made these amazing black quinoa corn muffins.  (Only I used regular quinoa because that's what we had.)  And OH. MY. they are good. 

I am never eating again

Soup, week three: African peanut quinoa soup.

This one was a no-brainer.  Let's face it, African = spicy, quinoa = protein and peanut butter = awesome.

The recipe called for sweet potatoes but leftover butternut squash from last week's roasted vegetable soup made a nice substitute (when supplemented with a pre-cut half from Whole Foods, roasted while the bacon cooked Sunday morning).

before

after

It needed a little more salt than called for, but I think that's because we made our own peanut butter and didn't add a lot of salt.  Otherwise I am pretty pleased with this one.  And thankful that he got jury duty so that I can enjoy leftovers all week...

Spring cleaning, part two.

most important rule
first freecycler to respond
is going to flake

Soup, week two: roasted vegetable and kale soup.

I wanted to love this soup.  It was alright, and it made for great leftovers, and it was most definitely healthy... but it didn't wow me. 

not the prettiest soup, either

Totally worth the experiment for the smell of roasted vegetables in our kitchen that day though.

Got to be a loner, we just do what we please.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending the local School of Rock's Beatles show, where tiny-to-high-school-aged children named Wednesday and T-Rex and Susiannamarie (Iann for short)* played songs about sex and drugs for two hours.

you are the youngest person in the theater

goo goo g'joob

It was wonderful.  Please support your local School of Rock. 

In related news, the hardest thing about this whole no-negativity missive is going to be dealing with people.  Specifically, Portland people.  Portlanders are, as a rule, fiercely independent.  We bike**, we hike, we run, we craft, we bake, we blog, we read.  (We read a lot, in fact.)

These are not team sports.  Sure, there are hiking groups and book clubs and knitting circles, but for the most part we are on our own.  And while we have the Blazers (yawn), the Timbers (passing fad), and the Winterhawks (for die hard hockey fans only), we don't spend a lot of time on team sports.  Therefore, we tend not to be team players.

This is my theory, anyway.***

Like the woman who stood behind us for 10 minutes yesterday, chatting loudly with her friend/on her phone and then moving to stand directly in front of us, blocking our up-until-then perfect view of the stage.  I could not help my body language when she turned around (it essentially said, "hey lady, WTF?") and she snapped, "her son is singing lead on the next song."

(Reaction #1: Well, you should've thought about that three hours ago and gotten a nice spot down front.  Reaction #2, which I wish would've come before my physical reaction: Oh, hey that's cool, whatever.  Luckily she and her friend went downstairs for photographic evidence of her son's 15 minutes of fame, and the rest of the show was totally enjoyable.)

And like me, and like my partner in crime, both of whom spent the entire day today actively avoiding people.

I really need to work on this.

Ob-la-di ob-la-da...

________________
* not their real names... but essentially their real names
** and by "we" I mean "not me"
*** and by "my" I mean I stole it from someone

Soup, week one: curry lentil.

I bought a bag of dried lentils a bazillion years ago and never did anything with them, so when this completely easy and delicious recipe caught my eye, we totally went for it during a halftime of football.

And it was awesome.

Our only recommended deviations from the original recipe: go with at least 2 tbsp of curry from the start (we skimped at her recommendation and added a tbsp more or so near the end), and add a few dollops of whole fat yogurt along with the lemon and onion before serving. 

just say yes

I am so excited about the next 11 weeks.

Belated Friday five.

One sentence each on five movies we have seen, in no particular order:

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi (an overdue review) - truly fascinating... and hunger inducing.
• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - I finally saw this for $3 at the local pizza/pint/playhouse, and finally learned that it is definitely worth seeing.
• Searching for Sugar Man - very inspiring, and possibly the only reason I've seen to want to visit South Africa (other than maybe swimming with sharks, which is coincidentally another good movie).
• The Hobbit - enjoyable enough in 2D, but with a made-for-3D feel.
• Bullitt - my dream car for many years was an electric blue 1964 Ford Mustang, Steve McQueen is no Paul Newman, and that's about all I have to say about this movie.