Anyone who tells a lie has not pure heart, and cannot make good soup.
~ Ludwig van Beethoven
I am not sure I am pure of heart, but I did make a good soup today. In an effort to liven up our diet, I have challenged myself to make soup every Sunday. I love soup, but don’t make it very often anymore. I have loads of soup recipes, including two cookbooks devoted entirely to soup. Both M and I save soup recipes from the newspaper or magazines if they sound good. The saved recipes pile up in a folder, ignored. It’s time to find out if they’re worth making and keeping.
Today I started with a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated magazine. Have you ever read Cook’s Illustrated? It’s one of M’s favorite magazines because they not only give you a recipe, but explain, sometimes in scientific terms, why the recipe works. One of the recipes we saved recently is for Red Lentil Soup with North African Spices. (I did not link to the Cook’s illustrated website because you have to join in order to see the recipe. I found the same recipe at another site, KCET, a Los Angeles television station.) I made it for lunch today and it was wonderful. It is a rather simple soup to make, not too labor intensive. I left out the mint because M doesn’t care much for mint in his savory food. I imagine it would have changed the flavor considerably. I’d love to try this with harissa. Now that I think about it, I have a big bag of dried chiles in the pantry. I think I’ll make some.
I will be keeping my Souper Sunday posts short. Just a photo or two, a description or review and, if available, a link to the recipe. If I can’t find a link and you’re interested in the recipe, let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to email it to you. Feel free to join me, if you like. Let’s see how many soups we can make.
Be good, be kind, be loving. Just Be. 🙂
We are nearing the end of a long hot summer here in Australia and I am so looking forward to enjoying soup again! Even cooking on the stove-top makes the kitchen too hot some nights so we have been eating plenty of salads, which we enjoy, but soup will be good for a change. 🙂
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I’m thinking about making cold soups as the weather warms up, Joanne. 🙂
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That sounds delicious. I wish I had a bowl. It’s a stay in bed day again today.
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I hope you’re feeling better now, Corina. 🙂
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I love soup and make it often, Red lentil is one of my favorites, too. Your looks yummy!
I make one based on the NY Times recipe, but I don’t really follow recipes for soup. 🙂 I make it spicier, but the touch of lemon is very nice. I also add spinach–because why not?
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Thank you, Merril. 🙂 I don’t usually follow recipes exactly for soups (or stews) either. I sometimes start with a recipe, but I veer off on my own depending on taste and what I have available. This particular soup wasn’t very spicy (my fault for not adding enough spice), and did have lemon which I agree with you about — it’s very nice.
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How interesting! I’ve recently begun to make Salad Sunday’s in an effort to get a little healthier. Probably won’t work because the good dressings and salty meats find a way to sneak in despite my vigilance, but its the thought that counts right?
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lol, Gabe! Yes, the thought does count. 😀 I’ve started making my own salad dressings lately (but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are healthy).
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Looks terrific. There is a Moroccan restaurant in town where they have a lentil soup that looks like this. It’s a favorite of mine. Is that hot pepper you put on it?
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Thanks, Eliza. 🙂 The red stuff is butter with paprika drizzled on top. I think this soup is traditionally served with harissa (a hot pepper paste), but this recipe didn’t call for it. I’d like to try it that way someday.
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Are the North African spices hard to find?
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Not at all, Dawn. Usually recipes for North African dishes have a long list of spices, but this one seems a little Americanized to me. The spices are coriander, cumin, ginger (I used fresh instead of the dry that it calls for), cinnamon, mint, paprika, and cilantro.
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Last winter I made a lot of soups, but for some reason I haven’t made as many this winter. I do have a recipe for a Red Lentil Daal that I like, and now that you’ve reminded me of it, I might need to do that again soon. I save recipes – in the past, I’d cut them out and paste them into notebooks, now I copy and paste into my “note” app, yet often when I want to make something I Google for recipes with the ingredients I want to use.
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I Google too, Carol. It is easier than going through my books. Then I decide I should start using the cookbooks or recipes I’ve saved and start doing things like Souper Sundays. We’ll see how long I can keep it up. I always start out enthusiastic and then get lazy with things like this.
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I love Cook’s Illustrated too! Although I’m not as scientific-oriented as M! The soup looks beautiful!
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Thanks, Anonymous. 🙂
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