JANUARY 3, 2020 – For Christmas my wife gave me a soup cookbook. Yesterday, I tried my luck at “Lentil Soup with Lemon.”
The signature benefit of my initial soup project was heightened appreciation for people (starting with my wife) who can prepare a whole meal.
Because the recipe involved vegetables, it involved chopping, and chopping involved a chopping knife. That scared me: my wife has cut herself chopping food, and I’ve heard of other people doing so. I put myself on high alert during this phase of the project—I imagined myself up at the lake operating my table saw. I have rules, the primary one being never, ever move my hands anywhere close to the rotating blade. I easily adapted that rule to the chopping knife. No blood was shed.
Once upon a time or two, I’d sliced an onion was an eye-witness to the extreme discomfort that such an attack on the onion family can cause one’s . . . eyes. Since the soup recipe called for dicing three “medium-sized onions,” I knew I’d be in tears if precaution wasn’t taken. Surely the internet tells a person how to counteract the onion effect, but as a downhill skier, I already knew what would work just fine.
When my wife passed through the kitchen during the onion-dicing operation, she burst out laughing at my ski goggles. She resisted the temptation to photograph me in my prime. We’re both fortunate she has self-control.
Note that “Lentil” was the featured ingredient. Lentils are good for a person. I like lentils. However, dried lentils require “simmering” in a vegetable stock. The directions told me to “simmer” the lentils in the stock for 20 minutes—with the pot lid off. This is the part where I learned that “simmer” doesn’t mean “boil.” By the end of the prescribed time, the 32 ounces of water I’d started with seemed more like . . . er, a lot less than a quart . . . and the lentils weren’t much softer than when they’d come out of the bag.
The directions said to put a mixer to the lentils at the end of the 20 minutes. I tried all mixer settings, from “fold” to “puree” without effect. When my wife asked if I’d soaked the lentils ahead of time, I said lamely, “The recipe didn’t say to.”
That’s when I went rogue. I cooked up another batch of stock, using the leftover (diced) vegetables from the stock. At my wife’s suggestion, I cheated and tossed in a couple of chicken bouillon cubes. I added this improvised stock to the pot full of “condensed stock,” hard lentils, and spices, and cooked the hell out of it—with the cover on.
The proof was in the eating, and here’s where multiple spices and juiced squeezed from two whole lemons kicked.
Taking that first step is the most important ingredient to accomplishing anything in life. I’m ready to make my second batch of soup. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll be able to put a whole meal on the table.
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© 2020 Eric Nilsson
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.) © 2019 Eric Nilsson
