just fucking cook

Attempted Lentil Soup

This ended up way thicker than I intended, a bit more like Dhal, but I wasn’t trying to make one and I don’t know what is actually in one besides lentils, so I’m not going to make any claims I can’t back up.

Ingredients

• Some potato. About as much as in the picture, although this ended up making shitloads.
• A big carrot
• Spices. Not a fucking clue what spices I used anymore, my usual approach is “whatever smells nice”. Although there is clearly some paprika, cumin seeds and black mustard seeds in that photo. And I think I remember using galengal (the light brown one). You’re on your own for the dark brown one though, unless it’s garam masala.
• Vegetable stock
• I have no idea how much lentils I used. That much. The amount in the picture.
• Some onion and garlic.
• White wine

Instructions:

1. Make vegetable stock - either use cubes, or boil some of the bits of vegetables you’re not going to use in a pot for a while (carrot tops, onion roots, keep some things from other recipes, maybe throw in some other things just because they’re nice like spices or herbs or whatever. I think I threw in some dried herbs and curry leave that I had).
2. Chop the potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic.
3. Put all the spices in the pot and gently heat them. This is supposed to make them better but I honestly don’t know how much difference it really makes.
4. Throw the onion and garlic in the pot with the spices and some oil, and fry them gently for a while. The spices ended up soaking up all the oil so I added some white wine to stop it all sticking, and also because I figured that would be nice.
5. When the onion and garlic looks cooked, put in the carrot, potato and lentils, and stir it around like that for a little while. This is another thing I always do and never know if it makes a difference.
6. Drain the stock into a jug or another pot, then pour it on top of the potato, carrot and lentil. 
7. Boil it until the lentils are cooked (My packet said 45 minutes, which is bullshit, it didn’t take longer than half an hour.
8. When they’re done (the carrots and potatoes should definitely also be done by then, unless you just threw them in whole or something) blend it - either let it cool a bit and put it in a blender (you may have to do this in batches) or use one of those hand blender things if you have one.
9. Serve. I served it as soup the first time, then gave up and admitted it really wasn’t soup and served it with rice like dhal the next time I had it.

This made absolutely shitloads. Four servings of lunch, and I still have at least three in the fridge. It’s good, though! If you want a more soupy consistency, keep an eye on it and when the stock boils down, add some water (or more stock if you have it), and it should end up much less thick.

Ok, blogging time!

I have been kind of leaving this blog to Elle over the past while, out of a combination of not cooking much, cooking to recipes I read (which feels like cheating to post here, unless I adapted them a fair bit) and usually defaulting to pasta.

Telling you all how to cook pasta feels a bit like telling you how to tie your shoelaces, you know?

So think of this as more of a serving suggestion, and I won’t feel quite as patronising. And to undermine that, this one has lots of pictures! Just be glad I didn’t upload the ones of pasta in the pot. This one isn’t vegan, but could be pretty easily adapted.

Spaghetti with peas, courgette and cream.

Ingredients (as pictured)

• Most of a packet of spaghetti
• Half an onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 250ml cream (probably a little less than this, I used what was left in two cartons. One of them was double cream, which is slightly better for sauces, but more expensive. Or also, use a vegan cream substitute.)
• Half a courgette*
• A large handful of frozen peas*
• Mint

(some people have Strong Opinions about what pastas go with what sauces. If you’re thinking ‘spaghetti doesn’t go with cream sauces!’, please picture me going “TTTTHHHHBBBBBBBBBPPPPPPPPPTTTT” and making a wanking hand gesture at you.)

1. I chopped some courgette up like you can see in the first picture, mainly because that’s quicker than cutting it all into round slices. These slices actually turned out to be a bit too thin (also, not enough). I put them in a bowl with some oil and tossed them around till they were coated, and put them on a baking tray like in the second picture, then put them under the grill on a high heat, because I was impatient.
2. I put the pasta on. Just follow the instructions on the packet, and check it a couple of times a minute or two before it says it’ll be done, if you are actually not finding this recipe really condescending.
3. Chop half an onion, one or two cloves of garlic, and as much chili as you think you need. This was a pretty strong chili (it’ll be cropping up in just about all of the recipes I’m about to post), so I only used this much. Go by personal taste/strength of chili.
4. Fry them with a little oil on a low heat.
5. Keep an eye on the courgettes while you’re doing all this. When they look like in the next picture, they are done, or if you’ve cut them a bit thicker than I did, they could get a bit browner (the edges of mine were starting to shrivel and burn).
6. When the onions and stuff look nicely cooked, add some cream (or vegan cream substitute. My girlfriend always uses Soy Dream, if that is available where you are). Cook it a bit so that the cream reduces and gets more saucy (don’t worry if it bubbles up a lot) (hey this is something I learned cooking in a real restaurant and is maybe something not everyone knows? hurray! something actually useful!)
7. When the cream has reduced a bit, throw in some frozen peas. More than in the picture, that turned out not to be enough.
8. When the peas have defrosted, chop up the courgette a bit more so it spreads around. Throw it in with some chopped mint (which I didn’t take a picture of because come on).
9. At some point during all of this, the pasta will be ready, so drain it, put it back in the pot and keep it handy.
10. When the courgette has warmed back up, throw the sauce into the pot with the pasta, mix it around and serve.

*The ingredients above made about five servings (some of the servings were small, though, probably four full servings), but like I said, I ended up adding more peas and it could’ve definitely done with more courgette.