Crushed Lentil Soup

I wanted to make Michael one of his favorite dishes because he's been working so hard. I've never made crushed lentil soup before but I think it turned out quite delightful!

Ingredients:

3/4 onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

6 c. vegetable stock

1 c. dry lentils (I used brown but I think yellow would be good as well!)

1/3 c. uncooked rice (I used long grain)

1 tbsp. cumin

1 tsp. thyme

2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

lemon juice

Instructions:

- Sauté onions and bell pepper in a fairly large saucepan. Since I was using my saucepan to dissolve my vegan bullion cubes, I just did this in a skillet with a bit of oil. Cook these over medium heat until they're just softened up -- about 10 minutes.

- When the veggies seem about right, add those along with the remaining ingredients except lemon juice into your saucepan. Bring this to a boil.

- Cover and cook on medium heat for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. I think I cooked mine for an hour.

- Once done cooking, transfer soup to a food processor and puree. Don't puree it too much -- I made sure to leave some of the lentils whole.

- Return pureed soup to saucepan to reheat. If the soup seems a bit too thick, feel free to add some water to make it the consistency you prefer. I think I added almost a cup of water.

- Stir in lemon juice and serve!

Michael and I had a bit of a feast last night! I made some small pita for the soup (pictured below) and still had a few big ones leftover for falafel sandwiches. Don't worry, we did not eat all that pita last night. We ended up eating the soup, baked falafel patties on homemade pita bread with green peppers, hummus, and some garlic spread that I made. Everything was amazing. It seems like a lot of food but we ended up having quite a bit of leftovers, which is good for me! The soup turned out better than I thought it would. We both loved it and I will most definitely be making that again.

Here are the small pita I made using the recipe in the last post. This made A LOT... definitely more than what would generally come in a bag of small pita bread. This picture only shows what I could fit on a plate! They're nice, too, because they split open very easily. They are definitely good for small pocket sandwiches or for dipping in crushed lentil soup :)

Pita Bread

Michael and I got some delicious hummus from Trader Joe's and I wanted some pita bread to go along with it. Buying pita bread from the store can get a bit expensive so I wanted to finally try making it myself (hummus is expensive as well but as of right now I am out all of ingredients to make hummus except garlic, ha). I got the recipe from here but used vegan ingredients. I also used my breadmaker to knead the dough and let it rise, which made my job a bit easier. I was able to clean the apartment while the dough was being made! I love that! Here are some pictures of my pita bread...

I ended up using only whole wheat flour, coarse salt, regular white sugar, 2 tsp. yeast, 1 1/4 c. water, and vegetable oil. They turned out the perfect size and they didn't bubble up too much! They tasted just like store bought pita bread and were significantly cheaper to make and tasted wonderful coming right out of the oven. I think they will be easier to make the next time because now I know how big to make the balls of dough and such (a little bit bigger than the palm of your hand). I also think I want to try making small pitas! Oh the possibilities...

Falafel Stir Fry

Falafel is one of my favorite Middle Eastern foods. However, it's usually fried and served on pita bread. To me, fried falafel tastes way better than baked but I've really been trying hard to avoid fried foods. I don't want to avoid falafel all together because of this, so I came up with some sort of falafel stir fry.

These are roughly the measurements I used, but of course it can be changed depending on what veggies you like and all that...

Ingredients:

1 c. dry falafel mix (I use Casbah)

1/2 c. cold water

1 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 chopped white onion

1 c. chopped broccoli

1 c. peas

1 c. chopped carrots

1/2 c. chopped zucchini

1/2 c. chopped squash

Instructions:

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees

- While oven is preheating, mix falafel and water and let stand for 10 minutes. When the oven is heated and the falafel is done soaking, make 1/2" thick patties and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes.

- While falafel is cooking, add olive oil to skillet and heat on medium to medium high. When the oil is hot, add veggies (if you have any frozen veggies add these before the others and heat for a couple minutes). Sauté veggies for the remainder of the time your falafel is cooking. I only cooked them this long because I like my veggies to be crisp and not soft and soggy.

- Once falafel is a golden brown color, take out of oven and place into skillet with the veggies. Use a spatula to sort of chop up/mix the falafel into the veggies. I like to chop my falafel up pretty finely so it incorporates nicely into the mix.

- Sauté this for a few minutes and then it's ready to eat!

I really like this because it's simple and doesn't require any extra spices. The falafel already has a ton of spices in it and the veggies have a pleasant taste to them as well. I like to change this up every so often and use different veggies or different amounts of falafel. Even though it looks totally unappetizing, it's actually very filling and satisfies my falafel craving!

Too bad I'm also having a banana soft serve craving right about now. Maybe I'll make another batch this weekend :)

Mujadara and Banana Soft Serve

Warning: This is going to be a long post.

Mujadara

Ingredients:

1/2 c. uncooked brown lentils

1 c. uncooked rice (I used long grain rice, but you can use brown or white)

1 sweet onion, chopped

1 or 2 tbsp. olive oil

a dash of cinnamon

a few dashes of cumin

Instructions:

- Chop onion (not too finely) and add to a deep skillet with the olive oil. Let this cook for 30-40 minutes on low heat, stirring the onions every so often. Stirring the onions is important so they brown evenly.

- Follow instructions to cook your rice. I used Uncle Ben's long grain rice -- which called for 1 cup of rice boiled with 2 1/4 cup water, then cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

- Add the lentils to another sauce pan and boil them with 1 cup of water. Once the water starts to boil, turn it down and let simmer for 30 minutes.

Whoa, check out this madness

I timed everything so it all finished together. Once everything is done, mix the onions, rice, and lentils (with leftover water) into the onion pan along with the spices. Stir and let simmer for 5-10 minutes. Once finished simmering, plate then eat! Yum!

Well, I practically inhaled this. I probably could've cooked the onions longer but I was impatient and hungry. I should never cook while already hungry, haha.

The good thing about mujadara is that you can customize it to your own needs. Some people make it without rice or spices. I personally like it this way the best. You can also speed up the process by not cooking the onions as long, using instant rice, etc. I think cooking it slowly like this makes all the flavors very strong and delightful!

Banana Soft Serve

("That shit is bananas... B-A-N-A-N-A-S" - made famous by Gwen Stefani but recently quoted by my lovely boyfriend)

Ingredients:

3 frozen bananas

2 tsp. agave

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Instructions:

Place ingredients in food processor and let it run for about 5 minutes. Make sure to scrape the sides every so often so every bit of banana gets in the blades.

Scoop out into a bowl and enjoy!

(Sorry for the bad quality picture)

This is one of the best things ever. It's so smooth and creamy and tastes just like soft serve. It's also so simple and easy to change up. I probably didn't really need the agave, but it was still good with it. I was going to add some cocoa powder but decided against it. Just a tip... 3 bananas worth is probably way more than enough for one person. I was already quite a bit full from the mujadara but this tasted so good and I couldn't stop eating it! Good thing it was bananas and not sugar-filled ice cream. Also, about 3/4 of the way through I realized I had already eaten a banana today. I had to stop and put the rest in the freezer. I doubt it'll be as good as when it was first made, but oh well. That makes roughly 3 bananas eaten today. I don't know what happens if you eat too many bananas in one day, but uh, I sure hope it doesn't happen to me!