a tale of two soups

[snugglekitty]

Sunday was soup weather. One soup was not enough.



I started the tomato soup first, which is ironic, since it wound up taking far less time to make than the lentil soup. I browned a can of tomato paste (rather ineffectually in this case) and then poured in a can of coconut milk. I followed them with half a sauteed onion, a jar of strained tomatos and some tomato pieces. Then I threw in a couple of handfuls of unsweetened dried coconut (both finely grated and coarsely grated) until I could taste the coconut again. The idea was to balance the flavors. I eventually needed to add another can of coconut milk since the flavor of coconut is so much more subtle than that of tomato. I also put in a bay leaf and some veggie stock.

Then I finished defrosting the duck stock mrpet made a few months ago. (The lentil soup I have been thinking of, blasphemously, as Porky and Daffy soup, because it was made with duck stock and bacon and I'm a bad human being.) I threw that in another pot with the other half of the aforementioned onion, a third of a cup of dry lentils, and two potatos chopped finely. I added mushrooms, carrots, and a few cups of veggie stock to give it a richer flavor and color. As it was cooking, I was suddenly inspired to add bacon. How French of me! I had someone else fry it since I've never learned to do that, and then I popped in the pieces. Red cooking wine and lemon juice added the finishing touches. The longer it simmered, the better it got. This soup came out exactly how I wanted it to, brothy and rich and full of veggies, and how often does that happen? It made me really happy. I'm also pleased that, for once, I resisted the temptation to add kale, even though we had a bunch of it in the house.

I didn't use a recipe for either soup, and it was my first

Comments

mmm

[trouble4hire.livejournal.com]

Left-over tomato and coconut soup was consumed last night, and there was much rejoicing in our house.