Lunch – But What Can You Eat?

One of the consequences of making cookies when you’re allergic to eggs is that you wind up with a bunch of cooked chickpeas. (Sounds antithetical I know, but the liquid leftover from cooking chickpeas makes a good egg replacement!) When that happens, my horror of wasted food rises up, and forces me to Do Something.

Hummus, however, gets really old after awhile. I mean, there’s only so many times you can eat it and think “I’m having a treat.” So, when I need to make my food into a multi-tasking dynamo, I do the next best thing: I make soup!

The inspiration for this dish today comes from Yotam Ottolenghi, who makes dozens of dishes I would love to try, but sadly can never eat because of my allergies. Lemony Lentil Chickpea Soup is nourishing, tangy, and smoky with cumin, roasted garlic, and onions. It doesn’t take long to put all the ingredients together (I often use pre-cooked lentils and chickpeas, and just cook the onions through. It’s also great for those times when the pantry is looking a little scarce, and you need a solid contender for lunch or dinner.

I can eat way too much of this, frankly, and so it keeps for about a week in my fridge. It can also be frozen in single servings for a month, but the texture becomes a little too mushy for my tastes. However, if you want a pantry staple in your back pocket for those times you have leftovers and don’t know what to do, or simply have odds and ends that don’t quite seem to go together, then I submit this recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

You’ll Need (2 – 4):

2 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup of lentils (dry) or 1 cup cooked

1/2 cup of chickpeas, cooked

1/2 cup onion, chopped

2 tsps. cumin

4 tsps. salt

4 tsps. pepper

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

1 small handful of cilantro, chopped

1 handful of fresh spinach (optional)

Juice of half a lemon

2 tsps. olive oil

Heat a saucepan to medium with the oil and onions. Add the garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper to the vegetables and let the onions become translucent. When the onions et al are fragrant, add in the lentils, chickpeas, and bay leaf. Stir together and then add in the chicken broth. Stir again, reduce heat to medium-low and let the soup simmer until it just starts to bubble.

Add in the cilantro and let it wilt. Then, pour in the the lemon juice. Stir and let it heat for about two minutes, and then turn off the heat, and stir in the spinach. Serve hot and delicious!

I like this soup (as you can see from the photo) with a dollop of unsweetened non-dairy yogurt stirred into it, but it’s delicious on it’s own as well. It’s also really good with a nice dense piece of bread!

Additional Comments:

If you’re cooking the lentils in the soup, make sure you’ve rinsed them thoroughly in cold water, and then looked them over for small stones. Increase the amount of broth by 2 cups, and add the lentils with the broth second to last after frying the onions, spices, and bay leaf, cook for about 15 minutes before you add the cooked chickpeas. I don’t recommend cooking dry chickpeas and lentils together, as they have different cooking times.

If you can’t find spinach safe from corn-based derivatives (often they drink up fertilizers as well as water!) then try a green safe for your consumption. I have been doing okay with the spinach from my grocery store for now, but I also wash it very well and there’s no guarantee!

If you’re vegan/vegetarian, you can easily sub a vegetable broth for the chicken, and still have a delicious gluten-free soup.

A good soup or stew is the perfect all day meal during the cold season (by which I mean, any month after August), and I make them constantly. Lamb stew, however, is considered something of a treat in my family. My grandmother cooked lamb (or rather, mutton) and my mom does too. I got the basis of this recipe from them, and then added my own tweaks to call the recipe my own.

I have a hit or miss relationship with red meat, to be honest, and so we don’t eat a ton of it in the house. That’s why this lamb stew is special to me; I have to make the most out of it, because it’s not coming back around again! And this stew is something else, let me tell you. I’ve eaten it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and never been left feeling unsatisfied.

You’ll need (serves 4-6):

1-2 lamb shanks

4 carrots, chopped roughly

4 celery stalks, chopped roughly

1 onion, chopped

2 parsnips, chopped

2-3 large potatoes, peeled and chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped

1 cup red wine (think Bordeaux, tempranillo, or malbec)

4 cups water

1 Tbsp cooking oil

1 large bayleaf

3 tsp parsley, chopped

3 tsp rosemary, crushed

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 Tbsp tapioca flour (optional)

Get out a good pot with a lid, and add in your lamb shanks. Brown them with the cooking oil at a medium heat, and then remove the meat to rest on a plate, while you add in all your vegetables except the potatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, spices and herbs.

Cook down your vegetables until a light brown crust forms on the bottom of the pot (the scrap-able bits!) and then deglaze the entire pot with the red wine. Don’t stand over it, unless you want a face full of alcohol-scented steam! Take a good spoon, and scrape up all the crust on the bottom of the pot, and then add in the lamb shanks, and the four cups of water. Lamb is such a flavorful meat that you don’t need to buy broth, this makes it for you!

Peel and chop the potatoes and add them into the stew. I think potatoes make the stew hearty enough not to need a thickener, but if your stew is looking a little thin, here’s what to do: Ladle out one cup of the broth into a soup bowl and add one tablespoon of tapioca flour. Whisk them together to avoid lumps of flour in the stew, and then add the slurry back into the pot.

Bring the pot to a bubbling boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer (usually I put it on medium-low or low). Cover and let it cook for at least an hour, if not more. The longer it cooks, the more rich it will taste! Stir occasionally, and let it reduce down by about a quarter.

Before you want to serve up, take some tongs and pinch out the lamb shanks. Set them on a plate and cut off all the meat. Don’t worry about being too savage with your knife cuts! This is a stew, and you want to have nice chunks of meat to go with those big vegetable pieces. Add the meat back in to warm it up, and then ladle out into a gigantic bowl to facilitate gulping it down with your biggest spoon.

Tip: If you’re making this ahead of time, I like to add the potatoes into the stew thirty minutes to an hour before serving, because I don’t want them to completely disintegrate. If you don’t have the time, add the potatoes when you add in the lamb shanks, and let them all cook together!

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Tag: Lunch

Lemony Lentil Chickpea Soup

Hearty Lamb Stew