Dinner Tonight: First Day of Fall Soup

Today is the first fall day that feels like fall.  Hanging out at the house on my day off today, I needed to add a sweatshirt to my usual jeans and t-shirt.  The fall-ish weather inspired me to simmer up a big ole pot of soup.  I had already gotten the stuff to try Christy's Dal recipe at Home Celebrations.  She makes hers super easy by throwing everything in the Crock Pot.  I thought I would make mine just like she wrote it, but then I:

• forgot the cabbage at the grocery store, 
• waited too late to start it in the Crock Pot, 
• got bored dealing with that many veggies 
• pulled back just a little on the amount of curry powder, 
• and decided to serve mine over rice, gumbo style, topped with a little yogurt.

Other than that, it's a lot like hers!  (Thanks, Christy!)

This was perfect for a cool, rainy day and it made the house smell really good!

Red Lentil Soup over Rice

This was my grandmother's soup pot.

Heat 2 T. olive oil in large soup pot.

Add:
1 onion, chopped (I used a yellow onion)
1 large carrot, halved lengthwise & thinly sliced
1 rib celery, chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced (I used a garlic press)
1 zucchini, cubed (about 1/2" cubes)

Cook until tender.

Add:
1 T. freshly grated ginger
1 t. ground cumin
1/4 t. ground cloves
2 bay leaves
2 cinnamon sticks
2 t. curry powder (Spice Island)
2 t. McCormick Hot Madras Curry Powder

Stir it around and add:
1 lb. bag red lentils (look more orange to me)
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
2 cups vegetable broth
2 vegetable bullion cubes
4 cups of water (I added more later)

Bring to a boil and then simmer for an hour or so.  Lentils cook pretty fast.  Add more water if you want a soupier soup.  Add salt to taste.  And, of course, remove the cinnamon sticks and bay leaves before serving.

I served this over cooked rice and topped with a dollop of plain yogurt.  Feel free to improvise.  I did!
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I am participating in Hearth and Soul Hop -- Volume 16.  There are tons more great recipes and ideas over there!

Back to School Book Week: Cookbooks

My first cookbook

Eren at This Vintage Chica cooked up Back to School Book Week and today is Cookbook Day.

I share with you my very first cookbook.  I still have this 1957 edition of Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls that I must've received on some birthday in the early 60's.  My favorite recipe was the Whiz Cinnamon Rolls ("sweet and spicy and so pretty") and I made them every chance I got.  Thus began my love of cinnamon rolls and the joy of cooking as a young child.

I have an odd memory about those cinnamon rolls.  One Saturday, we went over to my dad's parents' house for breakfast.  There must have been a special reason, because Saturday was not a day that we ever went over there, and never for breakfast.  Sensing it was a special day, I got up extra early to make my cinnamon rolls to take along.  I distinctly remember my dad apologizing for the cinnamon rolls, and I remember my grandmother being totally delighted with them!

This is a small picture of a great big generational change that happened during those years.  For my parents' generation, there were wonderful new choices of new, packaged, ready-made things -- like cinnamon rolls -- that were more uniform and predictable and certainly easier than my modest home-baked offering.  For my grandparents' generation, nothing was pre-packaged, not even the Bisquick that was the main ingredient of my "from scratch" cinnamon rolls.