Recipes for cold weather
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Split pea soup tonight. I have been using a recipe for “Lebanese” split pea soup, involving celery, potatoes, cumin and za’atar. Today I’m adding carrots. Split pea soup is pretty flexible and indestructible. The tricky part will be puréeing it in the blender without scalding myself.
Also making croutons from some old, stale sourdough.
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Sounds delish. Your Lebanese recipe sounds like the lentil soup they serve at the Pita Inn, one of our favorite lunch places. They do include carrots.
Vegetable Lentil Soup
Homemade vegetarian soup made with lentil, carrots, onions, celery and spices.
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Sounds delish. Your Lebanese recipe sounds like the lentil soup they serve at the Pita Inn, one of our favorite lunch places. They do include carrots.
Vegetable Lentil Soup
Homemade vegetarian soup made with lentil, carrots, onions, celery and spices.
@wtg That lentil soup sounds great too!
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Split pea soup tonight. I have been using a recipe for “Lebanese” split pea soup, involving celery, potatoes, cumin and za’atar. Today I’m adding carrots. Split pea soup is pretty flexible and indestructible. The tricky part will be puréeing it in the blender without scalding myself.
Also making croutons from some old, stale sourdough.
If you do a lot of purées in big batches you might like an immersion blender for. Christmas.
Much easier than transferring everything to a blender.
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If you do a lot of purées in big batches you might like an immersion blender for. Christmas.
Much easier than transferring everything to a blender.
@Steve-Miller Hi, Steve. I have an immersion blender. I don’t know, maybe it’s not a very good one, but it doesn’t do what the KitchenAid can. The KitchenAid is a powerhouse…took me a while to master it (well, still not mastered). The buttons have flashing red lights as if to say, like the software prompts, “Are you sure?”
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Dinner tonight. It’s just too easy to be this good. Chicken and bean chili. No recipe, Sharon made it up.
Sweat mirepoix in a big pot with a sliced green chili and a couple of cloves of garlic. Melt a block of cream cheese on top of it. Add one can each of white beans, black beans, pinto beans, corn, and diced tomatoes. Add shredded Costco rotisserie chicken. Heat up.
Season to taste - cumin, coriander, paprika, salt, pepper.
It’s way better than it should be with those ingredients. Even for a no UPF warrior with a Mediterranean diet mindset it’s hard to fault it other than maybe too much cream cheese
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I bought a butternut squash for the first time just to make this recipe and this excerpt from the instructions has me stymied:
"1 large butternut squash (about 3 pounds), halved vertically* and seeds removed"
This baby is not only heavy and solid, but I absolutely can't imagine how the vertical halving is supposed to take place without a machete somehow held in place (large vise?) and halving part of a hand all the same.
Having recently read that many (most?) ER visits are precipitated by trying to halve avocados (I myself had to go to urgent care not long ago thanks to a deepish cut from inept use of a sharp kitchen knife), I do NOT want to repeat the experience - only much more seriously! (Cleaver?)
Someone please tell me the secret is to bake the squash in the oven first! Carving pumpkins is daring enough!
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I've run into the same problem with butternut squash. When it's uncooked, it is a bitch to deal with.
Someone here suggested a brief cook in the microwave before starting any cutting; I don't remember for how long. I've used a very large chef's knife or a cleaver and....a rubber mallet. I put the squash on Mr wtg's workbench, position the knife/cleaver on the squash, and tap lightly to penetrate the very tough skin. I continue tapping until I'm all the way through. Peeling it and then cutting it into chunks is also a total pain.
I finally gave up buying them whole. I pay the extra and buy the cut up squash at Costco or the grocery store.
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It will soften in the microwave in about two minutes.
