April 15th, 2007.

I made a macro dinner for my family last night: Barley salad, arame w/onions, tempeh and pine nuts, carrot nishime, blanched bok choy and strawberry kanten with tofu cream. Oh yeah, lentil-leek soup as well. My brothers-in-law brought steak and sausage, to keep them happy, but the rest of the food seemed to round out their meals admirably.

Leek-Lentil Soup:

Perfect for spring, even though it’s incredibly cold here right now!
1 cup lentils
8 cups water, plus about 8 more later
About a tablespoon of dried wakame
2 large leeks, washed carefully and sliced thinly
Pinch of sea salt
Mellow white miso to taste
Fresh lemon juice
Parsley for garnish

First, I cooked the lentils in the 8 cups of water, with the wakame. They cooked for about 45 minutes, while I did all the other stuff for the meal. Then I sliced the leeks and water sauteed them with a pinch of salt until they were sweaty and limp. Add water to the leeks and let them come to a boil. Add lentils and miso. I then whizzed the whole concoction with my handheld blender (referred to as a “food dildo” by my friend Ginger). Finally, a big squeeze of lemon juice to add a nice light, springy touch. Ladle into bowls and garnish. Voila! Should serve at least ten. My family loved it.

Since writing this entry, I have also made a leek/cauliflower/dill/lemon soup which is really great: Just boil up a head of cauliflower (in florets), with two leeks, cleaned and sliced. Add an inch of kombu. Add water to cover. Let is come to a boil and simmer about half an hour. Remove kombu. Whizz with food dildo. Add white miso to taste, a big squeeze of lemon and about 1 tablespoon of chopped dill. You can serve this hot or chilled–I prefer chilled.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 am and is filed under My Life, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.