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Category: Food

Soup, second try – Turkey Lentil Squash soup

Okay, so the second try was also a big shameful and full of weird miscellaneous condiment selections. And yet also tasty.

Turkey Squash Lentil Soup

Okay, so roast squash and have some sitting around in your refrigerator all cooled and diced.

Also, leftover turkey, cut into chunks.

And this time, I’m trying it without soaking the lentils first. Rinse/wash them in three vigorous changes of water before using.

Oh, and I’ve made both turkey stock and vegetable stock. You can go with all of one or the other or just water – but they shouldn’t be at least warmed up to room temperature.

So brown 2 teaspoons of flour in a pan. Dice an onion pretty finely and stir that into the browning flour. Once the onions are limp and the flour is getting toasty, add a teaspoon or so of butter (or lipid of choice).

Now add some turkey stock and stir it all together until you have a gravy base. Add a teaspoon of red wine, a shake of Worcestershire sauce, and a little bit of browning sauce.

Add lentils and minced garlic with some vegetable stock. Once it reaches a simmer, add the cubed winter squash. And then a couple minutes later, the turkey leftovers.

Season with ground black pepper, ground ginger (I was bizarrely generous with this, but luckily the soup absorbed it well), a sprinkling of cinnamon, and some hot pepper.

Because these are all leftovers that have been sitting in the fridge, you really should have the soup boil for about 20 minutes, but my lentils were already pretty mushy by the end of that.

Soup of Shame

So here I am with my 5 pounds of turkey leftovers, and I have visions of a soup I think I’ve had somewhere before – a lovely, brown broth with lentils and pieces of winter squash and turkey. The soup in my head is delicious.

Because I soak legumes, and can not help myself from soaking lentils as well, I started 1 cup of lentils soaking the night before.

The next day, I melted a little butter and a little bacon fat (about 1 teaspoon of each), and once the onions softened I sauteed an onion, some garlic (3 cloves, minced), and some ginger (1 skinny inch, minced). Oh, and I added some asaphoetida – about half a teaspoon.

And then I added turmeric because I’d just been having a conversation with my ex about a bland soup that had been resurrected with turmeric and because the last batch I bought was surprisingly strong scented, so I’m hoping surprisingly flavorful, too.

So cooked that together for about 30 second to a minute, and then I added a scoop of the turkey stock (which had set up all nice and gelatinous) and let that melt in.

And then I added the winter squash. I have no idea what kind of squash this was. It was labeled at the farmers’ market as a sweet roasting squash, was about 5 pounds, and had a blue/green skin that was not as blue as a Hubbard squash. It did not roast up sweet at all. Instead, it had a bit of a sovory poultry-ish flavor, so I figured it’d be perfect for soup. So I rough diced it and dropped it in. Not all of the squash fit because I’ve found that I really can’t go much larger than a 2 quart pot, if I’m still going to like the soup by the last serving (and I only wanted the squash to be a third of the soup).

And then I added the soaked lentils and some more liquid (a mixture of turkey stock, vegetable stock, and water I’d used to cook chicken and onions the day before).

And I added some flavor elements – a whole stalk of celery and a bay leaf (both to be removed after cooking), the last of my buckwheat honey (1 1/2 teaspoon?), thyme, oregano, cinnamon, and freshly ground pepper.

And I let it cook… and it turned to mush, as you’d expect. And adding turkey to it at that point, would have been just gross. So despite having been fairly generous with the seasonings, I had 2 quarts of fairly flavorless mush.

I let the soup sit for a day while I pondered. And I figured that it might lend itself to something spicy/sweet/tangy.

So I came back and started looking through my random condiments. I decided against the tamarind chutney, even though it had a lot of what I was looking for. And I went, instead, with the bottle of Caribbean Savory Sauce that I had been having trouble finding a use for. And a little was good, so I went with a lot. Probably a quarter of a cup would have been the right measurement, but I went ahead and finished off the bottle – and it was not too much.

I also added some paprika (1 teaspoon?) and a lot of cayenne powder (possibly as much as 2 teaspoons, but you might prefer a lot less). And two capfuls of cider vinegar.

So it ended up tasty, but not at all what I’d been aiming for, and it didn’t use up any of my turkey.

Charities

I’m putting together a list of charities I like so I can narrow down the ones I’d donate to for the end of the year and/or my birthday.

And I’ve noticed that I don’t have any environmental organizations.

These days, most of the work I’ve been supporting that worries about sustainability and the environment is food-oriented.

So who is helping the trees?

I’m not looking for the Sierra Club. I’m looking for organizations that are smaller and more agile, where more than 50% of their income goes toward the work they are doing, rather than organizational expenses. I want a watchdog for industry. Someone working locally. Doing something specific that makes a difference.

Oh! Just typing this up has reminded me of one! Philadelphia’a Pedal Co-op. I should totally support them.

Any other suggestions?

ETA:ational but good –

Environmental Working Group – lobbyists and nonprofit activists working to change policy – ewg.org

Trust for Public Land – lobbying and holders of large and small scale sizes of land for conservation tpl.org

10,000 friends – http://10000friends.org/ have national and local (PA specific) plans to promote smart growth in urban development (meaning conservation is part of the larger picture instead of piecemeal)

Center for Health Environment and Justice- started by Lois Gibbs (love canal lady) around keeping communities healthy and safe and advocating for their wellbeing

Home

(those are the biggies, here are the grassrootsy ones with a greater need for your money)
http://www.ciw-online.org/ Coalition for Imokolee Workers – migrant farmers organizing for rights

Native peoples organizing around environment and climate change (maybe sara has an opinion on them) http://www.ienearth.org/

Rhizome Collective – http://www.rhizomecollective.org/ doing great work anarchist style

Growing power – www.growingpower.org. will allen (macarthur fellow) saves the day by making compost, giving people green jobs, and growing produce in rust belt cities.

Local (PA)-

Any conservation easement organization (means they put farmland or other productive land into sustainably managed forestry, foraging, etc)-
Natural Lands Trust www.naturallandstrust.org
Pennypack Ecological Trust http://www.pennypacktrust.org/

PASA – PA sustainable agriculture www.pasafarming.org

Even more local (Philly)-

Clean Air Council – doing good work around air emissions and pollution http://www.cleanair.org/

Bicycle Coalition – http://www.bicyclecoalition.org/

Community Environmental Defense Fund – http://www.celdf.org/ Really awesome legal services around environmental movements for communities that can’t afford it

UNI – urban nutrition initiative http://www.urbannutrition.org/

Chester County Environmental Justice group – http://energyjustice.ning.com/ or http://www.ejnet.org/chester/ but I don’t know how organized they are

Fair Food Philly – http://fairfoodphilly.org/

Pennsylvania Horticultural Society – http://www.pennsylvaniahorticulturalsociety.org/home/index.html

If you’re looking for super specific things, a fun website is www.kickstarter.com (like Kiva.org but for whatever and whomever wants to sign up)

I’d love a site redesign

Okay, so I love my food blog, and it’s coming up on its one year anniversary.

But I’ve been reluctant to post in it lately (partly from not wanting to write up the terrible University City Dining Days restaurant and partly because I just don’t like the template anymore – it’s all dark and oppressive, but it was the best of the templates I saw). (ETA: have since ported the missing months from my private journal over to this one – still looking for a site redesign as of 11/25/09)

I crave to have my own identity – my own, individually designed, style which is mine all mine.

And just as I was thinking that, one of the bloggers I read announced that she had just gotten her site professionally redesigned by nifty people. And I pined… so I shot them an email talking about what I wanted, and they sent me back their price list. And OMG – I am not paying $1200 to make my site look better. Because I am so much less professional than she.

Especially not when I have friends. Friends who are good at design and (in some cases) under employed.

So I propose to pay $300 for a quick, pretty WordPress template. I promise I’m easy to please.

So here’s the deal. You say you want to do the job. I give you specifics and 2 weeks to produce a rough draft. If there is a rough draft (whether I like it or not – done is good), I will pay you $50. If there is no rough draft, then I’ll give two weeks to the next person who responded. And then you have a month for a final draft – at which point I will give you $250.

Fair?

If you are interested, let me know.

ETA: Is that a fair offer? Let me know, if I am way out of line.

comments screened

More food

Made mushroom risotto this morning, using the last of the vegetable stock I had made.

And then I finished and strained a new batch of stock. Whee!

I’m working on a pot of red beans and pork, but after several hours of cooking over two days, it’s still not coming together right. I think that’s because this is my first time trying to use canned beans instead of dried. I don’t know – I’ve just had an urge to use up my canned goods lately. Eh, even if it doesn’t develop the proper gravy-ish base, it’s still coming out with the right taste.

Tonight, I need to develop a plan for the broccoli rabe (rapini).

And then I’ll just have the copious amounts of winter squash to figure out. I think I’ll break into the sweet roasting squash first – mainly because it’s big, and I have no place to store it. I’m thinking cutting it in half and roasting it with some butter – then I’ll eat some right away with cinnamon and sugar. Make soup out of most of it. And then reserve some to make ravioli with the thai basil and then cook it in a browned butter sauce.

That’s the plan, at least.