Or I Could Just Throw Stuff Into a Pot

I’ll admit it. I’m kind of sloppy and lazy when it comes to cookbooks. There are very few things that I love more than cooking. There are very few things I abhor more than following recipes (no, I don’t follow directions either and none of my furniture has fallen apart yet). As a result, most of the cookbooks I own function more like picture books. This is not to say that they are not guides. Sometimes while reading a cookbook, I’ll decide that some flavor combination sounds like a good idea. But, rather than using the author’s recipe, I cobble together something of my own. This is not the case with all books. The Millennium Cookbooks, Vegan Vittles and Vegan with a Vengeance are notable exceptions.

The one recipe I make from any book, even if the cookbook is otherwise rotting on my shelves, is the lentil soup. There are such things as mediocre lentil soup recipes, but there is no such thing as too many of them. The Ancho Lentil Soup (now in Veganomicon) is one of my newer favorites. A veganized version of a balsamic-mustard lentil and vegetable soup from either Self or Shape magazine is an old friend. But I keep tinkering and trying. Not because I’m tired of the ones I’ve eaten so far, but because I seem not to be able to get enough of lentil soup recipes in any form.

This week’s lentil soup was inspired by a cookbook, Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon, that I do plan to make a few things from. It’s definitely not a vegan cookbook, although I nearly forgot that when I was in the Moroccan mezze section. But that’s not what grabbed me. I was intrigued by the flavors: lemon, mint, pomegranate, almonds, walnuts, sweet spices in savory dishes. I scaled back on spices for this soup, because I wanted something bright and clean.

This soup is somewhat unusual for me, too, as it contains an ingredient that I’m fond of claiming I dislike: eggplant. Somewhere I picked up an aversion to it, but I haven’t given up on it yet. Here, because it’s pureed, I found it completely palatable.

Eggplant-Lentil Soup (Serves many)

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 onion, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

4 c. eggplant, diced

2 c. dried brown lentils

6 c. vegetable broth

1/2 c. lemon juice

Salt & pepper to taste

Approx. 2 c. cooked brown rice

For Garnish:

Fresh mint, pomegranate seeds, sliced almonds

* Sauté onions in olive oil until caramelized. (You may have noticed by now that I like to caramelized onions!) Add garlic and cook for an additional minute.

* Add eggplant (I didn’t bother to salt it since it will be boiled here and Arabesque claims it’s OK to do that with eggplant), vegetable broth and lentils. Cook until lentils are tender.

* Puree mixture. (I don’t like smooth purees. Leave it a little chunky if that’s how you like it.)

* Stir in lemon juice and add salt and pepper to taste.

* In a heated bowl (OK. I never heat my bowls. I eat alone. I garnish. Good enough, yes?) add 1/2 c. rice. Pour lentil soup over rice. Garnish with 1-2 tbsps. of chopped mint, 1 tbsp. of pomegranate seeds and 1 tbsps. of sliced almonds. I’m being generous referring to these items as garnish. They are really important to the flavor of the dish.

Tomorrow we will discuss PPK desperation, moldy injera and side dishes.  Two of those things are related, one is not.