Soup, week twelve: Smitten Kitchen's chana masala.

I ran across this lovely recipe on Wannabe Chef's blog the other day.  It looked so simple and delicious, and the best part was that we already had all the spices on hand except the amchoor powder - but even she didn't have that and substituted lemon instead.  So we did the same.

let the record show 

that we also used powdered ginger 

and didn't toast the cumin seeds before grinding them 

The verdict?  Hearty.  Healthy.  Uber spicy, bordering on too-spicy-but-not-quite.  In other words, absolutely perfect.  I suspect that after two days the flavors will meld in amazing harmony and when we heat it up for lunch I will be able to eat it with rice (which I couldn't do tonight due to a late afternoon cheese snack).

Next week marks the end of this quarterly goal.  As is usually the case with my recipe goals, part of me is happy - these goals are fairly time-intensive and often require more money than I would usually spend at the grocery store. 

The other part of me is going to miss these experiments.  But we now have an arsenal of soup recipes to take with us on the road and share with hosts along the way.  And that can't be a bad thing...