Lentil, Barley and Sausage Soup

Lentil and Barley Soup with Sausage

It's turning out to be quite a nice fall here in Portland, Oregon. (Hopefully I'm not speaking too soon.) For at least the last week, we've had gorgeous, crisp cool sunny days. Perfect fall weather if you ask me. The forecast for this week indicates we'll get more of the same. I certainly hope we do. It's my favorite time of year.

While I still can't believe it is already mid-October, I am definitely beginning to get excited about all the wonderful things that fall entails. Leaves are changing, temperatures are dropping, pumpkins are out on porches. One of the things I'm looking forward to is making soup. There is something so essential and satisfying about a good soup! And the truly fantastic thing about soups is they are so easy to make. They are so malleable. Be creative, get crazy---design a soup as you go. It is only recently that I realized that one really doesn't need a recipe for a soup, just a basic idea and whatever contents of your fridge and pantry that you are craving.

Soup after a long day at work.

That being said, I'm posting this soup recipe. I came up with this recipe by combining and tweaking a couple of recipes I've clipped from food magazines. I will always, always associate lentil soup with my mother. Lucky for me, she made fantastic lentil (and many, many other kinds of) soup. But, this version is a bit different than hers. It's a lentil soup with barley, and like any good lentil soup it is very hearty. It begs for a good chunk of crusty bread and a cold night. A little wine certainly doesn't hurt.

One of the best thing about soups, too, is that they just get better with time. Make a large batch and savor the left-overs for lunch the next day or freeze some to enjoy later.

Let the soup season commence!

Lentil and Barley Soup with Sausage

~Print Recipe~

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, separated (or more to taste)
• 2 sausage links, cut into small pieces
• 1 leek, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
• 1 cup carrots (or more), chopped
• 1 cup celery (or more), chopped
• 2 red potatoes, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon dill
  
• 2 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
• OR since I discovered I was out of Italian seasoning, I substituted the following:
• 1/2 teaspoon each of oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary (or more to taste)
• 2 to 3 courts low-sodium chicken stock (or water)
• 1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
• 2 cups uncooked lentils
• 2 tablespoons dry red wine (optional)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice (optional)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar (optional)
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (optional)
• Fresh cracked pepper and grated cheese to garnish

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium high in a Dutch oven or large soup pot. Add the sausage and cook until browned. Drain the sausage and remove from pot, set aside.  Add remaining oil and chopped leek. Stir to coat. 
2. As the leek is sauteing, chop and stir in the onion. Chopping and adding as you go, add all the ingredients through the potatoes, continuing to stir frequently. Add the spices. Cook for a few minutes until the vegetables are softened and the onion is translucent.
3. Add the barley and stir to incorporate. Add the chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Stir in lentils. Cover and cook for 30 minutes, or until lentils are soft and vegetables are cooked through.
5. Add the cooked sausage (and optional ingredients, if using) and simmer for another 10 minutes, until the sausage is warmed and flavors have mingled. Adjust spices as necessary.
6. Top individual servings of soup with more fresh cracked pepper and grated cheese of your choice. Serve with crusty bread.

Samosas

After only being in India a few days, I found myself, thanks to a friend of a friend, spending New Year's Eve with a local family in the Northern suburbs of Mumbai. I won't tell you about the harrowing train ride there, which left me in tears, but I will tell you that we arrived to a memorable Indian welcome and just in time for a lavish lunch prepared entirely from scratch by our host mother.

She started with handmade samosas. Though the whole meal was thoroughly enjoyable, the samosas are what I remember most. Made from scratch! By hand! Just for us! I never, ever thought that I would be able to attempt something like that on my own. And to be sure, when I flipped the pages of Cooking Light and came across a recipe for samosas, I was surprised to find it there. I imagined the making of samosas to be a laborious and time consuming task, something outside the scope of your average American cook.

Now, these samosas are not exactly what I ate that day in a Mumbai living room, but they are definitely good enough for me. The main leap of faith is using egg roll wrappers in place of the tasty dough that normally envelopes these savory treats. The egg roll wrappers are easier, of course, and I would rather make samosas this way than not make them at all, which would probably be the alternative--at least for me.

The original recipe was developed by Cheryl and Bill Jamison of, apparently, some cookbook fame. I had never heard of them before randomly picking up a sale book at Powell's called Around the World in 80 Dinners: The Ultimate Culinary Adventure. I think it was priced to move for a reason. Terrible, boring book. I don't know how the Jamisons made a book about travel and food boring, but sadly they did. Skip their book, but definitely try these samosas.

Samosas
(adapted from Cooking Light)

~Print Recipe~

• 1 1/4 cups mashed potatoes
• 1/4 cup cooked lentils
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh mint
• 1 teaspoon curry paste (like Patak's) or curry powder, more if desired
• 1 teaspoon butter, softened
• 1/4 teaspoon kosker salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 cup frozen petite green peas, thawed
• 10 egg roll wrappers
• 1 egg, beaten
• Cooking spray

1. Mix together potatoes, lentils, mint, curry, butter, salt and cumin until combined. Gently fold in peas.
2. Use one egg roll wrapper at a time and cover the rest so they don't dry out. Cut the wrapper down the middle to form 2 long triangles. Dip a finger in the egg, then use your finger to coat the edges of the wrapper with egg. 
3. With your hands, grab a small portion (about 1 tablespoon) of the potato mixture and place it near the bottom left hand edge of the wrapper. Fold the bottom right hand corner of the wrapper over the mixture to meet the left edge of the wrapper to form a triangle. Repeat the fold to the opposite side to form another triangle---like folding up a flag. Seal the edges and set aside. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling.
4. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Coat with cooking spray. Add samosas to pan, cook until bottoms are golden brown. Flip and cook until other side is also golden brown. Serve with chutney or raita of your choice. (Note: Trader Joe's has an excellent selection of chutneys and sauces.)

Makes 20 pieces/ 4-5 servings

Spiced Pumpkin, Lentil and Goat Cheese Salad

Reading food magazines, I have come across a ton of pumpkin recipes lately. Since pumpkins are bountiful and priced to sell these days, I decided to give this recipe from Gourmet a shot. For cooking, you want to use sugar pumpkins---they are smaller and tastier than your typical jack-o-lantern. I'd never actually eaten pumpkin outside of a pie, but I sure do love pumpkin in that form so I figured me and a pumpkin dish would get along nicely.

Well, yes and no. The roasted pumpkin in this salad was not quite what I was expecting. The spices I ended up using (I didn't have hot smoked paprika and substituted regular paprika with a dash of cayenne) seemed a little subtle and in the end were not the flavor direction I would have chosen for this dish. I liked the textural addition of the pumpkin and lentils to this salad, but the flavor of the pumpkin itself has a hard time standing up to the salty goat cheese and the shocks of mint. I liked this salad, but if I were to do it again, I would experiment with different roasting spices and/or a different dressing.

Spiced Pumpkin, Lentil and Goat Cheese Salad
~Print Recipe~

• 1 1/2 cups cooked lentils (either from a package--TJ's!--or from 3/4 cups dried and cooked)
• 6 cups 1-inch pieces peeled, seeded sugar pumpkin or butternut squash (from one approximately 2 pound pumpkin)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 1 additional tablespoon (optional)
  
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon hot smoked Spanish paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 4 cups baby arugula (or other lettuce)
• 1 cup soft goat cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced mint leaves
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (optional)
• Toasted pumpkin seeds from your pumpkin (I used a great recipe from Simply Recipes)

1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place pumpkin in a large bowl. Toss with 2 tablespoons oil, cumin, paprika and sea salt. Arrange pumpkin in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast for 20 minutes, then turn pumpkin over. Continue roasting until tender (10-20 minutes. I took mine out after an additional 15 min. but wish I would have left it in a little longer.) Cool.
2. Combine lentils, pumpkin and oil from pan (my pan had no oil) with lettuce, half of goat cheese, mint, vinegar and 1 tablespoon of oil. (Or, if using a different dressing, leave out oil and vinegar at this point.) Season with salt and pepper. Divide among plates (add dressing, if you are using your own) and sprinkle with remaining goat cheese.
   

Lentil-Walnut Burger with Creamy Cilantro Lemon Sauce

Lentil burgers remind me of the Sierra Nevada Brewery pub in Chico, CA. They offer enticing dishes of all types, but whenever I am there I have to get the lentil burger. It's just too delicious to pass up.

I saw this lentil-walnut burger recipe in my Everyday Food: Great Fast Food cookbook, from the people who do the Martha Stewart Living magazine. So far, what I've made from this book has been tasty, and what I really appreciate (just like in my Martha Stewart's Cookies cookbook) are the fantastic photos. It certainly helps motivate me to make new dishes when I'm staring at a mouth-watering picture.

I'm going through a cook-what-I-already-have-in-my-cupboards phase. I happened to have some dried lentils on hand--in fact I'd had them for quite some time. And I always keep a Costco-sized bag of walnuts (so much cheaper!) for baking and the like. So, the stars aligned and I decided to make these burgers for dinner. It was a bit of a process (maybe because I have the smallest food processor known to man), but not a complicated or terribly elaborate one. And the results were definitely worth the effort!

Lentil-Walnut Burgers
~PRINT RECIPE~

• 3/4 cup lentils, picked over and rinsed
• 3/4 cup walnuts
• 1/3 cup plain dried breadcrumbs
• 3 garlic cloves (or more to taste) coarsely chopped or pressed
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1/4- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• Course salt and fresh ground pepper
  
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large egg
• Creamy cilantro sauce (optional)

Creamy Cilantro Sauce

• 3/4 cup low-fat or non-fat sour cream
  
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• Course salt and fresh ground pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the lentils in a small saucepan and cover with 1 inch of water. Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook until the lentils are tender but still holding their shape--about 15-20 minutes. (The older the lentil, the longer the cooking time. I actually soaked my old lentils for about 2 hours before I started cooking so they wouldn't take as long to cook.) Drain well and cool.
2. Meanwhile, spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast in the oven until fragrant and darkened, about 10 minutes. Let cool.
3. While waiting for lentils and walnuts to cook, whisk together all ingredients for creamy cilantro sauce, season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
4. In a food processor, combine the walnuts, breadcrumbs, garlic, cumin, coriander, red pepper flakes, 1 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Process until finely ground.
   Add the lentils and 1 tablespoon of oil. Pulse until coarsely chopped. (Some lentils should remain whole).
5. In a large bowl, whisk the egg. Add the lentil mixture and mix well. Divide into 4 equal-sized parts. Roll into balls and flatten with your palms into 3/4-inch-thick patties.

6. Heat the remaining 3 tablespoons oil in a large nonstick skillet. Add the burgers and cook over medium-low heat until crisp and browned, gently flip the burgers---8 to 10 minutes each side. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Serve with creamy cilantro sauce and other burger fixin's.