BATTLE OF THE ANTS

It's been a long time since I did some proper food blogging. In fact, I think it's been a long time since I cooked anything particularly decent...part of that whole "holy crap, we're seven weeks into the semester and I have no idea where the time went" thing.

I follow a number of food blogs, and it seems like I bookmark something from at least one of them every day. I was tired of looking at my foody to-do list and decided to do something about it (namely, make one of the recipes I had bookmarked).

This particular photo is of my rendition of the hearty vegetarian barley and lentil soup recipe from Eating Out Loud. Granted, "my rendition" is not all that different from the original—I just messed with the ratios because I like my soups to be more "wet fixins" than "broth with fixins in it."

The original ingredients follow, along with my comments about my woefully unscientific adjustments:
1 tablespoon olive oil [or, a glug or two]
1 1/2 cups chopped onions [I chopped up one big onion]
1 cup chopped peeled carrots [I chopped up half of a small bag of the peeled baby carrots]
1 cup cubed peeled rutabaga [I used two medium rutabagas]
3 large garlic cloves, minced [I dumped in what was left in a jar of minced garlic]
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin [sounds about right]
1 large bay leaf (or 2 small ones) [two small]
10 cups (or more) vegetable broth [I used 10C]
2/3 cup pearl barley [somewhere between 2/3C and 3/4C]
2/3 cup dried lentils [somewhere between 2/3C and 3/4C]
4 cups (packed) coarsely chopped curly-leaf kale [I chopped up the entire big bunch I got at the store. It was pretty hefty.]
salt/pepper to taste [I don't think I used either]

Here's a printer-friendly version of the original recipe. It's quite tasty (and hearty)!

[Much like this trip to the store in September, the checker at the store today was unfamiliar with my friend the rutabaga. Since the checker is also a friend of mine (and it was early in the day), I didn't launch into my "intro to rutabaga" lecture. Sigh. Poor misunderstood Brassica napobrassica.]

Labels: foody