Lentil Soup

I made this soup because my other seemed to be pretty excited about the prospect of having some lentil soup and, even though I've never made lentil soup before, it turned out great. I took a few liberties with the recipe she found online, because it seemed lightly boring, but I didn't deviate too much. Mostly, I just augmented the herb bill and added some of the tub stock I like to use so often:

1 onion, chopped
A couple of glugs of olive oil
1 carrot, sliced
2 stalks celery (with leaves), chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried marjoram
1 t dried thyme
1 t dried basil
2 bay leaves
2 C dried lentils
1 (14.5 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 tub Knorr vegetable stock concentrate
8 C water
1 package whole-leaf baby spinach, wilted
2 T balsamic vinegar
salt, black pepper, long pepper to taste

I sauteed the onion over medium heat until it was translucent and added the carrots and celery. I then added the garlic, herbs, spices and lentils and stirred it all up, and then added the tomatoes, stock tub and water. I boiled the whole mess for about an hour, stirring in the vinegar when I added the spinach, about 15 minutes out. When we got ready to eat, we put some Parmagiano Reggianitto (it wasn't Reggiano and, no, I don't know what the difference is) on top and chowed down.

This turned out better than I could have expected. I've had lentil soup plenty of times, and I usually find it about as exciting as "Vegetarian Vegetable" or any number of other perfunctorily-prepared soups one can find in so many cans and at so many restaurants. Soups like that are often either just bland or, as is more often the case, bland with the addition of loads of salt. This was the sort of thing that I thought was decidedly good, and I'm probably going to make it a standard for when it's cold outside (or, I guess, when I just feel like having some hearty vegetable soup). I ate a full bowl of it and then went back for seconds, which is pretty uncommon these days.

Shallot Potato Soup

I made this soup on a night when I was away from my other and it was cold outside. Not being in a cold mood, I decided to make something to warm me up, and this soup was the answer. The metal bowl that it's pictured in is one that I bought from REI a while back, and it works fine for whipping up a single portion of something. The ingredient list for this soup was pretty small, though came together for magic:

2 small Red potatoes, cubed

1 medium Shallot, diced fine

1 T Butter

Water to cover

1 Vegetable bouillon cube

1/2 T Dried thyme (maybe, I just threw in a decent amount)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/2 C Milk (again, loose estimate)

I sauteed the shallot in the butter until they were past translucent, added some vodka to deglaze, and then threw in the potatoes and covered with water. I added the bouillon cube and thyme once it was boiling, and let it boil for about 10 minutes before checking it. At that point, I added some salt and pepper until it tasted right, and added a few decent glugs of milk.

This is a lot like potatoes I ate as a kid, which were cooked much the same way, but the addition of thyme and vegetable bouillon really make this whole dish shine. I tossed some in some chives I've been growing on my balcony for good measure, though they didn't really do much one way or the other.

Update: The decent gap between the last post and this one was due to me being out of town, eating a lot of restaurant food and cooking things I've cooked before. For the sake of novelty, I'm not going to blog about any of those things.