This is Actually About Soup

As winter settles in, my soupmaking is ratcheting up. Jason's convinced me to start documenting my 'recipes', though recipe is a misnomer; it's mo re of a list of things that I combine in order to make some kind of awesome soup. But for posterity, and for the sake of having some record of what went in that one really good soup we ate that one night, I'm gonna start actually writing about my experimental soups.

Yummy Curry Lentil Squash Soup

I'm going high-protein these days, and I freaking love squash, and I had some pre-cooked Trader Joe's lentils and I wanted low-key, low-prep soup. Thus:

Ingredients: Squash; coconut oil (or olive oil or butter. But I prefer coconut oil for this); lentils; canned tomatoes; veggie broth; spinach or some kind of green; chickpeas; yellow onion; shallot; ginger; garlic; curry (cardamom pods, coriander, fennel seeds, tumeric, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper); salt

• Roast a squash (in case, Acorn. Cut squash in half, put cut-side up in baking dish, drizzle olive oil on squash, bake at 425-450 until squash is soft)
• While squash is roasting, saute diced onion, a shallot (or more if you have more than one), lots of ginger, and garlic in Coconut oil on low-medium heat.
• When squash is done, scoop out and add to onion mix. Stir stir stir, and mush the squash a bit with the stirring spoon.
  
• Add small amount of veggie broth and let it all simmer for a while; add more broth as needed. I make my own broth; this particular one had lots of apples in it so it was a bit sweet.
• Add some lentils to the simmering situation.
• Meanwhile, make this awesome version of Heidi Swanson's Sri Lankan Curry from her cookbook Super Natural Cooking. I was out of cloves, so this was a clove-less version. Still super yummy though. I toasts cardamom pods, coriander seeds, half a cinnamon stick, fennel seeds, cumin, and a dried red pepper in a skillet. Then I put it in my mortar/pestle thing and ground it all up with a good amount of tumeric. Grind grind grind.
• Add 1 can of diced tomatoes (unless you have fresh ones, but this being winter in Cali, there are very few good fresh tomatoes). I used Muir Glen, which seem to be the ones that Bay Area hippie fancy food people prefer. Also the ones that Jason happened to buy from Long's.
• Stir. Add ground up curry goodness, and more broth, depending on your desired soup consistency. This one is good as a pretty thick stew-y deal.
  
• Add some chickpeas for extra protein and awesomeness
• Throw in some spinach leaves at the end and stir until they're wilted.
• Voila!
• This would be good with salad, but we didn't have any salad greens, so we had some hummus that I made, and some Sunflower Cheddar Dr. Kracker crackers.
• Then watch 3 episodes of Entourage On Demand. Enjoy!