Left Over Remix Recipe: Lentil Soup

Lentil Soup with Hummus Leftovers

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 Tbs aniseed
• 2 large onions sliced
• 1/4 lb bacon
• 2 quarts chicken stock
• 1 cup red lentils
• 4 pears sliced
  
• 2 tsp coriander
  
• 1 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp salt
  
• ~1 cup hummus or 1 can garbanzo beans and 2 Tbs tahini
• 1/2 c. orange juice
• juice of two lemons
• 1/4 c. chopped parsley

Optional:

• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 Tbl pomegranate syrup or brown sugar for sweetener.

Heat oil over medium high heat until slightly smoking. Turn down burner to low and add aniseed to toast. When seeds begin to turn brownish color, add onions. Stir occasionally to keep from burning but allow onions to caramelize into a nice brown color.


Caramelized onion with bacon and toasted aniseed.

In a separate fry pan, saute up bacon until crispy and drain grease. In a soup pot, add to onions: bacon, chicken stock, pears, lentils, coriander, cumin and salt. Allow to cook over low for 30-45 minutes until lentils are falling apart and pear has disintegrated. If pear still is slightly whole, take a fork and break apart.

Once lentils are cooked and dd hummus, stirring to mix. If you don't have any hummus, you can add a can of garbanzo beans and tahini. Add orange juice and lemon juice to add a tart citrus flavor. Add salt to taste and fresh chopped parsley right before serving. For optional taste you can add milk which will give the soup a creamier flavor and/or Pomegranate syrup or other sweetener according to taste. Garnish with yogurt, preferably labna and parsley

This recipe is based off the premise of a simple lentil soup recipe which is just lentils, onions, stock, and lemon. A lot of the ingredients I used in this recipe because I had them around the house, such as the orange juice and the pomegranate syrup. I added milk because I added too much salt and needed to tone down the taste.

I always say my ingredients are approximations, but I don't want this to scare anyone off from trying my recipes. I add this disclaimer as an attempt to empower you to understand if you don't have one or two of these ingredients its OK. Experimenting with substitutions is a great way to explore food and make a recipe your own by changing it slightly to match your taste. Keep tasting your food as you go along and augment it to whatever you may need: if its bland, add some spice, if its flat, add some body like more stock of bullion, if you accidentally added too much salt, add a bit of cream to tone it down. Just have fun and trust your own tastes.

Left Over Remix: Hummus and Pita

Lentil soup uses up old hummus with Spanikopita Strata using stale pita soaked in eggs to make this months Left Over Remix.

I always say make food in bulk and then if you'll have left overs. I love left overs, but only so many days in a row. You can't eat the same food all the time, and to humor Ira who doesn't like left overs at all, I try to recreate and remix them into something else. Last month, I talked about how I reused marinara and kielbasa into a couple meals. Making over left overs is a great way to save time and not waste food or money. So I decided to introduce a monthly post title "Left Over Remix" to chronicle quick ways to avoid the leftover blues.


Hummus and pita cut into triangles for the halloween party.

For this left over remix, I wanted to do something with the large amount of hummus and pita left over from the halloween party. I had about one whole bag of pita triangles going stale and two cups of hummus which we were totally sick of snacking on.

Here in Chicago, the weather has totally turned cold so I immediately thought of soup. A lentil soup would do nicely for taking care of the old hummus.

To deal with the pita, I started thinking of recipes good for stale bread. I just made the Zingerman's Chicken dinner which uses stale bread for a stuffing so that was out. I then thought about bread pudding, but I wanted something savory. Remembering the Cheese Strata we made for our Oktoberfest Brunch, a casserole made of stale bread soaked in milk, I decided to fuse this recipe with a spinach pie concept to make a strata spanikopita.


Lentil Soup garnished with parsley and labna, a Middle Eastern style yogurt.

For my soup I knew I wanted a richly spicy flavor which could be offset with a creamy citrus flavor hinting at the hummus. Toasted aniseed with caramelized onions and bacon give a nice solid base to the soup. A friend had given me a bag of pears, so I threw in a couple with the red lentils to stew giving a subtle sweetness. When the lentils were cooked and falling apart, I added the left over hummus, the juice from 2 lemons and some milk to finish off with some tang. I was very happy with the complex flavors brought out in the soup. Here is the recipe.


Spanikopita Strata: Pita and spinach with feta and Parmesan cheese before egg mixture.

My strata was concocted by mixing the pita triangles with diced onion, a bag of frozen spinach, half lb of feta and a 1/2 c. Parmesan. To this I added a mixture of eggs, milk, lemon juice and spices to soak into the stale pita. The strata was topped with strips of old filo dough from the freezer. When serving, I squeezed a little fresh lemon juice on top to add a little extra tang.


Cups of soup with a serving of Spanikopita Strata make for a quick delicious dinner.

Both the spinach pie strata and the lentil soup made for a delicious meal for a cold night. I didn't really need much from the store except some lemons and we were able to transform some lousy left overs into a delicious new dinner.