Monday, February 4, 2008

Yay Soup!

I haven't made any chili yet. I got a ton of great recipe suggestions, though. I should have mentioned that I don't want to use any meat substitutes (so no crumbles!). Sometimes I don't mind using that stuff, but lately I've been trying to steer clear of that sort of thing. I don't mind seitan and tempeh, though. Also, I have a weird aversion to chili that has corn in it. For some reason a ton of people want to put corn in their chili. I don't quite get it. I don't mind having some cornbread with your chili, but no corn inside, thank you very much.

tarragonLentilSoup_001

I did, however, make the French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme from Veganomicon. Yum! I love lentil soup and for some reason I've never tried to make it myself. I haven't a clue why. I had some fresh thyme hanging out in the fridge, so I used that instead of the dry. I couldn't find any fresh tarragon or I would have used that fresh as well. Otherwise, the only thing I changed was to use a can of diced tomatoes (drained) instead of fresh tomatoes. There aren't any good tomatoes this time of year so I wasn't even going to try. Plus, using the can was much faster and I didn't end up with little tomato peels swimming in my soup. If you can get those yummy fire-roasted ones, totally use those instead of the regular. The flavor they add is freaking incredible. Their awesomeness will take you by surprise. Or, well, maybe not because I just told you how awesome they are. But, still...

I did love this soup, it was perfect for what I was wanting at the time. And it was fast and easy to make. I do think it could have stood to simmer for another 15-20 minutes, though. My lentils weren't quite as soft as I was hoping they'd be at the end of things. They weren't unedible or anything, but I like my lentils to be soft like the canned ones are.

10 comments:

  1. Yuck. I hate substitutions in chilis. Good old beans are good enough for me!

    Yum. That lentil soup looks good. I don't remember seeing it in V'Con, so I must've overlooked it. I'm out of tarragon and thyme so I can't make it. But when I get some, I'm going to have to try it. There's something just so amazing about lentil soup.

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  2. even though I do enjoy chili with crumbles and corn kernels, yours looks perfect :-)

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  3. Oh! I've been wanting to make something lentil again soon! I also loved your last post about samosas. I want to make that recipe so bad - I just love them! - but I agree it looks like a lot of work! Enjoy them for me until I get to them :)

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  4. I never tried lentil soup tll I went vegan, but now that I have I eat it all the time. I still need to try the V'Con recipe... thanks for the inspiration.

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  5. Corn adds some fun color to chili, but cornbread is certainly more flavorful!

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  6. You can never go wrong with lentils. Yum.

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  7. That soup looks fantastic! Tarragon isn't used nearly enough in my opinion. It has such a great flavour. Sadly, the Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes aren't available in Canada anymore. I stock up on cross-border shopping trips. I love using them in chili. Speaking of which, I'm one of the kooks that sometimes adds corn and instead of fake ground beef, I will use defrosted tofu that I just crumble into the pot or nothing at all except lots of black beans & kidney beans. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

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  8. Looks yummy! I'm one of those peeps who will put corn in chili if I have it on-hand. :D

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  9. Love me some lentil soup- looks so good! And as for corn in chili, I must confess because I love love love corn, I welcome it in my chili any day...need to get started & cook some V-Con.

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