Category Archives: Main Dishes

Spiced Red Lentil Vegetable Soup

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Spiced Red Lentil Vegetable SoupLife is a dream and a wonder and a swirl and a song.

It is doing heel clicks in the snow on the way to work and it is singing softly in the kitchen on the weekend while turning a heavy pomegranate orb into a bowl of ruby jewels.

It is coming home late at night and then staying up even later with your housemate, laughing first then talking seriously, lowhushedintent, into the early hours of the morning.

It is wearing your new white-with-a-black-floral-pattern skinny jeans into the office and exclaiming, with a whoosh of relief, “I was scared I looked like mutton dressed as lamb!” when a colleague compliments your outfit straightaway.

Spiced Red Lentil Vegetable SoupLife is loving the fact that you’re a bit exhausted from All Of This Living, and secretly being a little pleased that you’re too busy to blog as often as you used to. Life is the heartsoulrush of being truly in the world, laughing loving learning. Life is knowing that not only could you still fit in a myriad more adventures each week, but that you want to.

Life is taking a quiet moment to tilt your head and smile at the gorgeous colours in the Spiced Red Lentil Vegetable Soup before you, smiling again at its wonderful complex healthful nourishing vibrant taste, and then smiling once more, again again again, because you didn’t splash even one red drop on your new white-with-a-black-floral-pattern-hopefully-not-mutton-dressed-as-lamb skinny jeans.

Spiced Red Lentil Vegetable Soup

Serves 4, adapted from the wonderful Angela at Oh She Glows

  • 1 tb olive oil
  • 1 large red onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 5 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1tsp smoked paprika
  • ½-1tsp chilli flakes, optional (or, if you’re me, absolutely necessary)
  • 14-oz can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
  • 5 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 cup red lentils, rinsed and drained
  • 165g green beans, chopped
  1. In a large pot over medium heat, sauté onion and garlic in oil for about five minutes, until onion is softened.
  2. Stir in thyme, cumin, chilli powder, paprika, and chilli flakes, and sauté for two minutes until fragrant.
  3. Add the tomatoes, stock, and lentils, bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
  4. Throw in the beans and simmer, uncovered, for 10 more minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then serve.Note: Freezes and reheats beautifully. To life! (I hope at least half of you are singing Fiddler on the Roof right now.)

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend and Healthy Vegan Friday.

Quick and Easy Adzuki Pumpkin Soup

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Quick and Easy Vegan Adzuki Pumpkin SoupThank you to everyone who sent well wishes after my last post! I’m happy to say that my Monday turned out to be even more magnificent than I’d imagined. To shed a little more light upon matters, and because I still can’t say it any better than I did last night, I give you this Facebook status update:

Facebook intern announcmentI am on clouds. I promised myself when I left my Australian life behind that, once overseas, I had to truly take chances, that I had to leap and reach towards what my heart longs for, whether this be an age-old longing or a sudden unexpected longing. I told myself I couldn’t cheat by simply calling this adventure an adventure; I had to actually be adventurous, and push myself out of my comfort zone whenever possible.

I promised myself I would stand up and say to the world: I am here and I want, I want, I will, I’ll try, please, I promise, I’m here.

Hannah in new Lucca dressSo I’m starting from scratch in an industry I’ve dreamed of joining for a very long time. I bought myself two new dresses in the hopes of looking the part, and took a silly photo of one such dress in the snowy early morning darkness so I could show my mum (hi mum!). I’m excited, thrilled, hopeful, ready.

As for today’s recipe? It’s a good-un. Super easy and quick to pull together, rich in layered flavours, healthful, vegan, warming, and just a little bit unique due to the less-commonly-used adzuki beans, this spicy Adzuki Pumpkin Soup is guaranteed to put a skip in your step.

Because my internship is of the unpaid variety, you can look forward to seeing a great many more legume recipes on this blog in future.

Are you excited? I am. Here’s to adventure.

Quick and Easy Vegan Adzuki Pumpkin Soup

Quick and Easy Adzuki Pumpkin Soup

Serves 4

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped finely
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped finely
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
  • 2 teaspoons Mrs Dash Southwest Chipotle Seasoning Blend (or 1 tablespoon chipotle chilli powder)
  • 1/2 teaspoon (or more, to taste) red chilli flakes
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 can (420g/15oz) pumpkin puree (or homemade if you’re fancy!)
  • 1 1/2 cups (240g/1 can, drained) cooked adzuki beans
  • 3 sprigs fresh thyme
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, sauté onion and garlic in oil for five minutes or until translucent. Add cumin, smoked paprika, chipotle seasoning, and red chilli flakes, and stir for two minutes.
  2. Pour in the stock, pumpkin puree, cooked adzuki beans, and fresh thyme. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 35 minutes.
  3. Season to taste, garnish with more fresh thyme, and serve.

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend and Healthy Vegan Friday.

Vegan Red Lentil Dal with Cranberries

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There are times in life when an idea pops into your head and you feel certain that it’s going to turn out well. Later, when you follow through, you discover that your idea wasn’t merely adequate; it was utterly marvellous.

Vegan Red Lentil Dal with CranberriesLike, say, when you decide on a whim to move to Canada despite never having visited the country before and you know it will be an adventure then almost a year after you first conceived of the plan you find yourself lying with your two new housemate-friends on a half-broken couch-futon squished together like laughing sardines and it’s your second night in your new sublet and you’re watching Midnight in Paris and you have a mug of hot tea resting on your stomach moving up and down slightly with each breath and there’s a cat printed on the mug and your stomach feels wonderfully warm in a perfect circle beneath the tea and the cat is looking at you and you’re looking at the pairs of feet lined up at the base of the half-broken couch-futon and suddenly all of your earlier quiet fluttering panic about not knowing what you’re doing with your life melts away and all that matters is the crystal clarity of this moment, this crystal perfect moment, this one moment in time.

Vegan Red Lentil Dal with CranberriesOr when you decide to make a red lentil dal but you want to make it different and unique somehow; you want it to be representative of the fact that you’re in Canada, that you’re really living in Canada, so you think let’s add some fresh tart lovely bright red jewel cranberries to the spiced red lentils, and you think it will be good, but it turns out to be better than good. Your Vegan Red Lentil Dal with Cranberries turns out to be the best dal-slash-red-lentil-soup you’ve ever made or eaten.

It’s like that.

Vegan Red Lentil Dal with Cranberries

Vegan Red Lentil Dal with Cranberries

Serves 4
Adapted from Orangette

  • 1 tb olive or coconut oil
  • 1 medium red onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 medium green capsicum (bell pepper), chopped
  • 1 tb (heaping) tomato paste
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 1/4 litres vegetable stock
  • 1 cup red lentils
  • 3/4 – 1 cup fresh cranberries (see note for substitutions)
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, then sauté the onion, garlic, and capsicum for about five minutes until onion is translucent and capsicum has softened.
  2. Add the tomato paste, cumin, and smoked paprika, and stir for another two minutes until the paste and spices are beginning to toast and your kitchen starts to smell delicious.
  3. Pour in the vegetable stock and lentils, bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for half an hour.
  4. Add the fresh cranberries ten minutes into the lentils’ cooking time, so that the cranberries simmer and meld with the deliciousness for about twenty minutes.
  5. Season to taste, and serve.

Notes: If you can’t access fresh cranberries where you are (hi Australia!), try adding an equal amount of thinly sliced rhubarb. Alternatively, skip the cranberries altogether but season with a few squeezes of fresh lemon, to taste, just before serving. This makes a very soup-y dal, so if you’d prefer something more suited to serving over rice, cut down the stock by about two cups.

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend and Healthy Vegan Friday.

How To Make The Perfect Sunset Borscht

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… in 15 easy steps.

Laura Ingalls Wilder attic loft window1. Wake up in your perfect Laura Ingalls Wilder attic-nook and immediately dart over to the window. With your hand upon the rocking chair, take a deep breath as you look out over the cascading greengreen mountains.

2. Plunge headlong down the Vertical Staircase of Terror, calling out good morning to all and sundry before making a beeline for the coffeepot.

Jeniqua in the Monterey Mountains3. Hug Jeniqua because she is marvellous, then follow her out into the kitchen garden that she’s been carefully creating and tending over recent months.

Hannah as Linnea in Monet's Garden4. In the borrowed hat that makes you feel like Linnea in Monet’s Garden (do you remember that you even had the doll, oh so many years ago?), pick so much beetroot that your arms can barely hold the weight of the full basket.

Fresh zucchini flowers from the garden5. In the kitchen with Jeniqua, discard the stems, peel, and then roughly chop the beetroot (even the teeny tiny-ones no bigger than your thumbnail), setting aside the leaves for Jeniqua’s ducklings. Think about the zucchini flowers you saw in the garden, but decide to leave those for another day.

6. Throw a great many ingredients into the soup-pot and set it to simmering, agreeing that the soup will henceforth be known as “borscht” purely because beetroot (or beets, if you’re American) is its star.

7. Acquiesce to the spontaneous decision that everyone at Lloyd’s farm should walk up the mountain to watch the sunset.

Sunset over the Carmel Valley/Big Sur mountains8. Watch the pink-golden-shimmering sun melt into the fluffy blue clouds below, gently, silkily.

9. Think about how gorgeous the sunset is.

10. Think about how the sunset reminds you of the final pages of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (the book, clearly, not the movie).

11. Think about how you are actually quite incredibly hungry.

12. Start to feel antsy. Hear that the rest of the group wants to keep walking up the mountain. Look longingly down the sloping road to where the borscht is waiting.

Hannah with apple from apple orchard13. Salvation! Lloyd’s apple orchard! Fresh tangy juicy crunchy pink-skinned white-fresh little apple straight off the tree! You feel human again! Excitement! All the things! Exclamation mark!

Perfect golden billowing sunset in Carmel Valley, near Big Sur14. Turn around and feel your heart flutter at the incandescent beauty of the flaming gold sunset; drink in the light as it etches the horizon beyond endless, undulating, billowing clouds.

Toasting the sunset near Monterrey15. Further up the mountain, toast the sunset with Jeniqua, Steve, Anna, and your drink of choice before skipping back down home again to finally, finally serve up magenta bowls of glorious perfect sunset borscht. You’ll find that it’s more delicious than you could ever have imagined.

The Perfect Sunset Borscht

The Perfect Sunset Borscht

Approximate recipe, to serve an approximate amount of people. Don’t you love it when I’m helpful?

  • 1 onion, roughly chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
  • olive oil
  • a mountain of beets, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 2-3 potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 1 small apple from the orchard, just because you saw it on the counter, peeled and roughly chopped
  • water
  • cumin
  • garam masala
  • fresh thyme and lemon, to serve
  1. In a large heavy-based pot, sauté the onion and garlic in olive oil until softened.
  2. Throw in the basketful of beets as well as your sweet potato, potato, and the apple. Cover with water, and then stir in cumin and garam masala to taste (you can use any spice that sets your heart on fire, such as fennel, caraway, sprinkles…). Season with salt and pepper.
  3. Bring to the boil then simmer, partly covered, until all the veggies are cooked. Season again to taste, and then puree. (Recipe can be made up to this point and then stored until serving. Tastes even more miraculous the next day.)
  4. To serve, stir the pureed borscht over medium heat until warmed through. Serve garnished with thyme and wedges of lemon, to taste.
  5. Perfect, perfect sunset soup.

I’m submitting this to Healthy Vegan Friday #8, Ricki’s Wellness Weekend and Allergy Friendly Friday.

Vegan Rosemary Roasted Pumpkin Coconut Soup

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Sometimes, all you need are a few words, a few mere powerful words, with which to know your world. With which to paint your world.

Vegan Rosemary Roasted Pumpkin Coconut SoupGospel Rehearsal: hugs smiles music voices harmony hugs secretchatter smiles singing hugs friendship.

Work: typing phone committees reports updates laughter coffee airport chatting friendmaking stress emails deadlines typing.

Vegan Rosemary Roasted Pumpkin Coconut SoupFuture: dreams planning terrified trying pros cons emails health panic laughter warmth soulsister breathe.

Family: love support laughter teasingpoking hugs coffee strength always love.

Soup: roasted pumpkin forest rosemary golden simmer breathe smooth coconut richness vegan comfort spicy warmth calm.

Vegan Rosemary Roasted Pumpkin Coconut Soup

Vegan Rosemary Roasted Pumpkin Coconut Soup

Adapted from Taste.com
Serves 4

  • 1kg butternut pumpkin, deseeded, peeled, coarsely chopped (weighed after peeling/deseeding)
  • 1 tb finely chopped fresh rosemary
  • 1/4 cup olive oil (I used lemon-infused olive oil)
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 large red onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp sambal oelek (or one small red chilli, chopped)
  • 3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 cup coconut milk/cream
  1. Preheat oven to 220°C (430°F). Toss the pumpkin, rosemary, and half the oil together in a large roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper, then bake for 30 minutes until golden and tender.
  2. Meanwhile, sauté the onion, garlic, coriander, spices, and sambal oelek in the remaining oil over medium heat in a large saucepan until the onion has softened, 5-10 minutes. Add the pumpkin mixture and stock, bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
  3. Using a stick blender, puree the soup until smooth (you can also do this in a blender, but who really wants to do all of that extra washing up?).
  4. Add the coconut milk and reheat over medium-low heat until warmed through, taking care not to boil or else the coconut milk may split. Season again, then serve. This soup will keep in the fridge for a few days, developing in flavour in a most marvelous way.

Question Time: What are your words for today?

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend.