Moroccan Lentil Soup

Many years ago we had a wonderful soup in a little Moroccan restaurant in San Luis Obispo, CA that I just had to try to reproduce. This is my version.

Moroccan Lentil Soup

1 cup green lentils
bay leaves

1 - 15 oz can Muir Glen Tomato Sauce*
1 red dried pepper – seeds & shreds (use scissors) or red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 can garbanzo beans

1/2 large sweet onion - diced
1/4 cup minced celery
4 clove garlic - pressed
1/2 tsp hot paprika
1/2 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt
fresh ground pepper

1-2 cans water
1 carrot – diced
2 summer squash or mixed squash, cut in 1/2 moons

1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
fresh cilantro for garnish

Cover lentils and bay leaves with water & simmer 15 minutes or until done.
Saute onion, garlic and celery. Add spices and sauté a little longer. Add vegetables and water and simmer until vegetables are done, about 10 – 15 minutes.
Add tomato sauce & cooked lentils.
When vegetables are done add lemon juice & caraway seeds.

* or Diced or Roasted Tomatoes – blend with immersion blender before adding

Vegan Curry Pumpkin Soup

This soup was a big hit at Thanksgiving so I'll share my recipe here. I used pumpkins & apples from my own garden and I don't what kind of apples they are, just a nice sweet eating apple. I left the skins on.

Vegan Curry Pumpkin Soup

2 TB Coconut oil
10 oz onion, diced
3 - 4 large cloves garlic
1 oz minced ginger root
2 TB curry powder
1/2 tsp red chili flakes (or to taste)
1/2 tsp salt
lots of freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 lbs. apples, cored & chopped
4 cups baked, mashed pumpkin pulp
4 cups water
2 cubes Rapunzel vegetable bouillon
2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
2 cups unsweetened soy milk
a little brown sugar or stevia
Thinly sliced scallions for garnish

Saute onion, garlic & ginger root till translucent. Add curry powder, chili flakes, salt & pepper, stir into onions to release flavors. Add apples, pumpkin, liquids & bouillon. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, cover & simmer about 20 minutes. Puree using an immersion blender or let cool and puree in blender. Serve hot with scallion garnish.

Pumpkins can be baked whole - remove the stem and cut a small hole in the stem area to let steam escape. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350ºF for an hour, hour & a half, depending on the size of the pumpkin. Allow to cool, cut in 1/2 and scoop out the seeds, then cut into strips & pare off the skin with a knife. Use for pumpkin pie, soup, breads, etc. I bake 5 or 6 small pumpkins at a time and freeze portions in freezer zip lock bags to use later.

Hope you like this!

Pronghorn Antelope

I was having lunch yesterday, looking out the window and what should I see strolling down the road but this pronghorn antelope! I was so surprised, I thought it was a deer at first, it wasn't until I looked closer at the photographs today that I figured out what it was. Hope he doesn't find my vegetable garden!

Mysterious chrysalis

I suppose I should change the title of my blog to something with gardening in the title since I write so much more about that lately. Anyway, there's always something interesting in the garden, even when you don't think much at all is happening. We had a light snow last night and this morning and it is still below freezing most nights. I went out this afternoon to bury kitchen scraps and found this, right of the surface of one of my raised vegetable beds. It is quite large, about 3 inches long, and felt pretty solid when I turned it over (with a stick). Hope I didn't damage it. Anyone know what this is? Is it a good bug or is it a bad bug (to paraphrase Glenda, the good witch of the West).




Update: I have two guesses
1. sphinx moth pupa
2. Tomato Hornworm:
http://organicgardensite.com/bugs-harmful/tomato-horn-worms/

Unfortunately, the dirt had been shoveled out of my tomato bed so I'm betting on that right now.

Who Owns Nature?

As gardening season is starting up soon I want to encourage you to buy only organic seeds. I didn't used to think it made a difference - if I kept an organic garden and raised it organically, what difference did it make if the original seed was organic or not? We recently had a conversation on the Seeds of Change Yahoo group about this and this is what Marc Cool, who works for SoC had to say about it, he gave his permission for me to reprint this.

"This is an important discussion and one that we as an organic seed company obviously have strong feelings about (we have been doing this now for 20 years!). There are many reasons to use organic seeds (it is the right thing to do, seed is the first link in a safe food chain etc), but the two main reasons in our view are;

Conventional seed production is an inherently chemical intensive practice. This is understandable, as plants which are to produce seed are left in the field far beyond the fruit maturity. In order to protect these plants from pests and diseases, conventional agriculture uses far larger amounts of chemicals for seed production even than in food production. Organic seed production uses other methods to protect the maturing seed plants. As such, organic seed production provides a substantial decrease in the use of chemicals in our environment.

There is a strong interaction between plants and their environment. If a plant was grown in organic conditions, the seed from that plant and therefore the next plant generation, will be better adapted to those same organic conditions. In our case, most of our varieties have been grown for many plant generations in organic conditions, and these plants therefore are better adapted to and perform better in organic growing conditions.

We hope the above helps you. Many people have this same question and we are pleased to have an opportunity to provide our thoughts on this."

Marc Cool
Seeds of Change

So, this brings me to this next item, which came in a newsletter from Organic Consumers Association today.

The World's Top 10 Pesticide Firms - Who Owns Nature?, when you buy seeds that are not organic you are probably supporting these businesses. Do you really want to do that?

"...the world's six largest agrochemical manufacturers, who control nearly 75% of the global pesticide market, are also seed industry giants. Bayer: the world's biggest agrochemical company is also the world's seventh biggest seed company.

Syngenta: the world's second largest agrochemical company is also the world's third largest seed company.

Monsanto: the world's biggest seed company is the world's fifth largest agrochemical company.

And DuPont: the world's second biggest seed company is also the world's sixth largest agrochemical company.

All these companies are gene giants.

Weed killers (herbicides) account for about one-third of the global pesticide market, and around 80% of GM seeds involve herbicide-resistance.

The worldwide market for agrochemicals grew last year by nearly 10%.

World's Top 10 Pesticide Firms

Company - Agrochemical Sales 2007 (US$ millions) - % Market Share

1.Bayer (Germany) - $7,458m - 19%
2.Syngenta (Switzerland) - $7,285m - 19%
3.BASF (Germany) - $4,297m - 11%
4.Dow AgroSciences (USA) - $3,779m - 10%
5.Monsanto (USA) - $3,599m - 9%
6.DuPont (USA) - $2,369m - 6%
7.Makhteshim Agan (Israel) - $1,895m - 5%
8.Nufarm (Australia) - $1,470m - 4%
9.Sumitomo Chemical (Japan) - $1,209m - 3%
10.Arysta Lifescience (Japan) - $1,035m - 3%
Total $34,396m - 89%
Source: Agrow World Crop Protection News, August 2008

The top 10 companies control 89% of the global agrochemical market.

See the article for more info please.


And by the way, they are on Twitter too: http://twitter.com/organicconsumer

My almost raw dinner salad

Still alive, and still cooking, or assembling, as is mostly the case with this dee-lish salad. This is our current fave, born out of having lots of beets and needing variation on the salad theme. Today I made the diced veg part early, I will mix it with the greens just before serving and top with a little feta cheese. I make a lot, then we can have it for 2 days, keeps fine. Everything is diced - not too small - but so you get a bunch of different things in every mouth full. You can make without the curry & hot pepper but the spicy version is great.

The beets were baked with a dash of olive oil, s & p, bit of water, covered, 400º, 1 hour or till tender when pierced with a fork.

The carrots, lettuces, spinach & parsley are from my winter garden - so great to have really fresh, really local (back yard) produce.

No measurements, just a list -

Celery
Carrots
Red Onion
Beets
Basil, chiffonade
Pecans
Cucumber
Red Bell pepper
Sweet apple

Mixed lettuces
Spinach
Arugula
Parsley

Spicy Dressing:
Curry powder
Red Chili flakes
Cayenne pepper
Dill weed
Spike seasoning mix
Olive oil
Apple Cider vinegar
Vegenaise

Feta cheese

I had some diced potatoes that I had cooking Indian style w/curry spices last week and threw those in one of these kitchen sink salads, it was good and a great way to use a small amount of a leftover too.

Chard & Cheese Calzone

Chard & Cheese Calzone
Makes 6
What to do with all that chard? Make calzone!

Dough
1 lb. unbleached white flour, with about ½ cup of whole wheat flour in the total (about 3 1/3 cups) – King Arthur
½ cup olive oil
3 TB vegetable shortening (Spectrum organic veg. short.)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 TB baking powder
1 packet yeast (Red Star)
¼ warm water
¾ cup lukewarm water

In a large bowl dissolve yeast in ¼ cup water.
In a separate bowl weight or measure out flour then add salt, sugar & baking powder to it.
Measure out olive oil, add veg. shortening to it, have water ready. Mix everything together until smooth. Turn out onto lightly floured board and knead to combine to a smooth dough. Place in oil bowl, turn to oil top. Cover with plastic wrap and set in warm spot to rise at least 45 minutes.

I let it rise till I was finished making the filling and only punched it down when I was nearly done with the filling.

Put pizza stone on lowest rack in oven and preheat to 450º.

Filling
Olive oil
5 Hungarian yellow peppers (med. Hot)
¼ cup sun dried tomatoes strips (1/3 cup after soaking)
1 – 5 oz. yellow onion, minced
2 large cloves German white garlic, minced
4 ½ oz mushrooms, roughly chopped
12 oz garden fresh chard, weighed after removing center ribs
big handful fresh basil from garden
½ tsp salt
lots of freshly ground black pepper
1/8 – ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
8 oz package mozzarella, grated
1 – 15 oz container part skim ricotta
should have some parmesan also (I was out of it for this batch) ¼ to ½ cup
1/3 to ½ package Gimme Lean veggie sausage (opt) couldn’t really taste it later
Amy’s Garlic & Mushroom Pasta Sauce to serve on the side

Put tomatoes in small bowl with a little hot tap water to let reconstitute before starting the dough.
In a little olive oil pan roast the peppers until lightly browned. Remove to a plate to cool, set aside. When cool enough seed and dice and have ready.

Put in a little more oil and brown sausage if using, breaking it up into little bits as it cooks. Remove and set aside.

Saute onion until translucent, add garlic and sauté a few minutes, then add mushrooms. Saute till wilted down then add chard in handfuls, mixing after each addition to incorporate onion mixture well. Add salt, pepper & nutmeg. Cook in open Dutch oven and keep stirring so you have a fairly dry mixture. Turn off heat.

In a large bowl combine cheeses, minced basil, minced peppers and sausage, mixing well. Add chard mixture and mix very well. At this point I weighed the total mixture so I could divide it evenly among the calzone.

Prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling with coarse cornmeal.

Weigh dough and divide into 6 equal portions. Roll each portion into an 8” circle. Wet the edge with the leftover liquid from soaking the tomatoes (or water), spoon filling onto half the circle, leaving about an inch border and evenly distributing filling. Fold over other half and press edges together so filling does not leak out. Make a rope edge by pulling and folding. Cut a couple of slashes so steam can escape. Place on peel till you have 3 made – I fit 3 on my 15” pizza stone.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve with warmed pasta sauce – I thinned it with the remaining tomato soaking water.

These finished calzone weighed about 12 oz each, a hearty meal.
My plan in trying this today is to come up with a delicious way to use up lots of chard out of my garden and have something that would be great to freeze for winter meals. I think I’ve got it! These are fabulous, if I do say so myself.

Variation on a theme to try:

Greek calzone - a spanakopita filling, with feta cheese and oregano
Southwest calzone – filling of corn, roasted green chili, queso fresca or local goat cheese served with a side of my red enchilada sauce