Soup Songs #7: Create Your Chaos

I wholeheartedly agree that people create their own busyness. Besides tapping into my new agey cosmic universe opinions, I just simply believe that you can choose what you do and how much you do. That being said, this week I have created my own personal heavenly hell. I'm overbooked. I most certainly do not have enough hours in the week to do all the things that I have agreed to do. I'm still thrilled to be doing these things and thus will not be backing out of any of them. Times like this remind me that I was once in college and if there weren't enough hours in the day, you just sort of stayed up and figured it out.

Even amongst a seemingly impossible schedule, we still managed to eat and hug friends (usually out of necessity) and brew an endless pot of coffee. If you're going to choose to be the busiest person around, don't complain about it, just do it and do it well. And don't forget to eat. If you don't eat you'll just get the jitters from all the coffee and your blood sugar will get low and you won't get anything done anyway. Soup is easy and perhaps you have a calmer friend that wants to make you some this week. I took the time to put on this fancy show for you, try and take the time to eat something.

I pulled this recipe off of one of my favorite websites, The Post Punk Kitchen. I didn't test it because I'm clearly very busy and important but it looks really good. You should make it and freeze some for the next time you don't have time to cook a proper meal.

Ancho Lentil Soup With Grilled Pineapple
[from the Post Punk Kitchen, www.theppk.com]

1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 dried ancho chilies, seeds removed and ripped into bite sized pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced small
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Seranno pepper, seeded and chopped (add another if you like more heat)
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon salt

2 cups green lentils, washed
7 to 8 cups vegetable broth or veg broth and water mixed

3 tablespoons of lime juice or to taste

Cooking spray
6 to 8 pineapple rings

slices of lime to serve
hot sauce to serve

We're going to make our own ancho chili powder. Preheat a small frying pan over low-medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and ancho chili pieces and toast, stirring often, until fragrant and toasted, 3 to 5 minutes.

Transfer to a spice grinder (I use a clean coffee grinder) or small food processor and grind to a coarse powder. Some bigger pieces of chili are okay. Add the coriander seeds to the cumin and anchos and pulse a few times to crush them, you don't want them ground to a powder, just broken up pretty well.

Preheat a big stock pot over medium heat. Saute the onions in the olive oil until transparent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the serrano and garlic and cook for another minute. Add the spices and stir. Add the bay leaves, salt, lentils and 7 cups of water. Mix well. Bring up the heat, cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling lower heat to low-medium and let simmer for 1/2 an hour, stirring every now and again.

Meanwhile, heat up your grill pan on high heat or preheat a broiler. Spray your grill pan with cooking spray and grill the pineapple slices for 4 minutes on each side, or until grill lines appear. If using a broiler, cook on one side for 3 minutes and the other for about 2, until pineapple begins to brown and slightly carmelize.

Once the lentils are tender, add an extra cup of water/stock if you think it needs thinning. Add the lime juice and stir.

Remove the bay leaf. Use an immersion blender to puree about half the soup. If you don't have an immersion blender, use a potato masher to mash it up a bit, until desired thickness is achieved. Taste for salt.

To serve: ladle into bowls and top with a pineapple ring, a slice of lime and dot with hot sauce.