Winter Soup

So, did you have a big "Nor'easter"? Well, I did. When I look at the big pile of snow in front of my house or better yet the sheet of ice on my sidewalk, it just plain old makes me shiver! I decided to do something about this. At my 4th cooking lesson, I made Spiced Squash, Pear, and Fennel Soup. This soup was extraordinary. It was so good that it and the lentil soup are my favorite soups. You know, the Lentil soup that I begged you to try.  Yes, now I am making you try this! This is this good. I let my aunt try some of this soup, and she said "Wow! The flavors are so complex!" I am sure you are saying "What does that mean?" But after you taste the squash and pear flavors, the last flavor in your mouth is a citrus flavor thanks to the orange peel (!) in this soup. In fact, this soup is so good that I am eating it while I am posting. That never happens. One thing I did in advance was while the squash was roasting, I cut all the vegetables (and trust me, there are a lot!). After, I just had to put the vegetables in in the soup. One way I ate this soup was with crusty bread. It was really good and I used the bread like a spoon, scooping up the soup with the bread. Make sure, you roast the squash before cooking it because it boosts the vegetable's flavor. It also makes it easier to peel. 

These are the vegetables after I chopped them all while my squash was roasting

So...here is the recipe that I am insisting that you try. Please, just try the soup. I am sure that it will become one of your favorite soups too!

A Warm Cure

A couple days ago,  I made lentil soup. I made up a HUGE  batch. I decided to give some to my aunt who has been sick for 10 days. This soup freezes well so, she can have it all winter. The recipe below is doubled because I found that there was not enough in the original recipe. If you have tupperware, this is the time to use it. If, you don't than any plastic bag will do (make sure that they are the "freezer" kind not the "sandwich" or "snack"). So, there is no reason not to make extra.  This recipe does not call for a ham hock, so you do not need to cook up some ham to make this. This only takes up to 45 minutes so, you can make up a batch really fast. I adapted this recipe from Dinner:A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach. She also has her own blog and it is http://www.dinneralovestory.com/. All of the recipes are super easy and do not take that much time. This recipe calls for beluga lentils but french lentils will also do ( I could only find french lentils at the store and t worked just find). Also there is only 3 vegetables in this recipe so there is not a lot of chopping involved.  This recipe called for anchovies and I do not like any thing fish related, so I omitted them. The recipe also did not say to "soup-wand" but, I like my soups "soup-wanded", so I did "soup-wand" it. If you do have a "soup-wand", I recommend that you use it. A "soup-wand" is also known as an immersion blender.  It really blends the soup all together, rather than tasting the individual ingredients. The recipe is to follow. Another add-in that might taste good with this is crumbled sausage.