Lentils Are Not Catfood

Hold your hats, ’cause it’s

Lentil Soup Time!

Now, first of all, you may be wondering what’s up with the cat.  Well, I believe that kitty there truly encompasses what most people think of lentils.  People seem to that that they look like cat food, sometimes they smell like fat good, and, of course, if it looks like cat food and smells like cat food, it’s probably cat food.

Well, I say no way!  Lentils are really good, especially if prepared properly.

However, that’s the key…preparing them properly.  The good news is, it’s just not that hard!  Once you master that trick, you will be on your way to wonderful lentils every time!!

Also, I mentioned this recipe has “pistou.”  Don’t be afraid of the term, pistou is just pesto without the nuts!

Making Lentil Soup

This recipe was inspired by my friend Chef Jasper,who serves lentil soup in his restaurant every Monday.   He gave me some pointers on how to cook the lentils and I totally ripped off the pasta idea from him.  With that being said, I tried to take this recipe in a different direction.  Not because his wasn’t good, but because I wanted to do something a bit different.  However, I did keep the pasta in the recipe.  If you have any left over from the night before, heat it up and add it in for a nice heart twist.

Anyway, I hope I succeeded in making something original.  If not, well, sorry Chef!

You will need:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 2 stalks of celery
• 2 cups of vegetable stock
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
• 1 cup green lentils
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 bunch basil
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1/4 cup cooked pasta

First, make sure your pasta is cooked.

Next, in a soup pot add the olive oil and let it get hot over a medium flame.  Then add the onions and the garlic.  Saute until the onions are translucent.  Add the onions and celery and cook for 4 minutes with a pinch of salt.  This will help caramelize their sugars and give the soup a slightly different taste.

Next, add the stock and the cilantro and stir well.  Bring the mixture to a boil over medium high heat. 

Once boiling, reduce the heat so that the broth is just barely boiling (aka simmering) and add the lentils and cayenne pepper.  Cook for 45 minutes or until the lentils are soft.

While the lentils are cooking, put the basil in a food processor and pulse 4-5 times.  Then slowly drizzle in the olive oil until the pistou is a thick paste.  This will go over the soup and needs to be a bit thicker than a pesto sauce.  You probably won’t need 1/2 cup, but it’s better to have more than not enough.

Once the lentils are done, ladle into bowls over the pasta, top with pistou and any extra parmesan cheese and enjoy!

Thanks to xueexueg for the picture!

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I thought it would be a good thing to talk about since until only the last few weeks did I actually become aware of how to cook with them.  Even then I went ahead and did a little research into what they are since all I knew is that they are a replacement for soy sauce in a number of recipes.

What I found is that Bragg Liquid Aminos is a raw, fermented soy-based sauce.  While the sources I looked at would not break down exactly how they are made, it is basically thought to be a chemical process in which the proteins in the soy are broken down with an acid and then nutralized (likely with baking soda.)

In practical use, Bragg Liquid Aminos is a very deep, salty sauce.  First and foremost, Bragg Liquid Amino acids taste like heavily concentrated soy sauce.  It is also slightly bitter and I think has an almost alkaline aftertaste.  Still, the sauce brings a lot of flavor to the party and is useful in a number of dishes.  It still hasn’t unseated tamari (low sodium, right Sue?) as my weapon of choice when it comes to making most Asian foods, but there are times when I will use it, especially when that is what the recipe calls for.

No related posts.

I wasn’t always vegan.  In fact, when I was still doing blogspot.wordpress.com, I was a carnivore, though given that my wife was vegetarian, I was at least veg-friendly.

In this post, I could recount my path towards going vegan or I can drone on endlessly about my vegan manifesto, but suffice it to say, I am not one of those vegans.  If you eat meat, more power to you.  I choose not to and I have good reasons for it which I will gladly share.  If you ask.

That being said, I find something awe-inspiringly frustrating about being vegan and life I guess.  When I ate meat, vegetarians called me a murderer (seriously.)  When I became a lazy vegetarian (for me this meant the kind that eats fish), true vegetarians and vegans told me it wasn’t enough.  When I became a true vegetarian, vegans told me I was stupid to eat dairy.  When I became vegan, the raw foodists told me I was stupid because I cooked things that were killing me from the inside. 

(Of course, many of them eat sushi so I could have chosen to turn my nose up at them.  I instead asked them how they justified use of a dehydrator.  I highly suggest asking this if you ever want to see a gaggle of raw foodists go on the defensive.  I swear it was an honest question.)

Oh, and now, of course, as a vegan, meat eaters make me a target for their scorn as well.  I have relatives apologizing that I have to eat disgusting things like portobello mushrooms and veggie burgers.  I have friends who worry about going out to restaurants with me.

I do not believe I realized how political this decision was when I made it.  I fully expected some backlash, especially from others who had had military veg*ns call them murderers.  What I did not expect was the food-circle-of-finger-pointing.  I naively believed that non-meat eaters were basically a unified front.  Silly me.  In fact, at one point, it was a bunch of veg*n animal rights activists that nearly drove me to eat meat again, just because I wanted to disassociate myself from their behaviors.

I guess what I am doing here, besides ranting, is reaffirming my personal creedo.  What you eat is nobody’s business but your own since you doubtlessly are going to upset someone.  (This doesn’t apply to cannabals.  I would kindly ask them to consider changing their diet.)  If you eat veal wrapped foie gras, great!  If you eat nothing but what falls from the trees, great!  If you are a vegan, great!

Ultimately, I have made my dietary choice and I believe it was the right one.  If you disagree, I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong.  I’m going to feed you vegan food.  And you’re going to love it.  Then we’ll talk about the benefits of a vegan diet.

Muwahahahahaha.

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