Category: Food

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Lentil soup

I’ve got this New Years family tradition – lentil soup. You eat it on New Years Day to assure prosperity in the New Year. I make it every year. How do I make it? Try this. It’s close to how my father made it, although I’m pretty sure he didn’t add soy sauce, and I think I added the (truly modest amount of) garlic too.

This could just as easily be pea soup if you made it with dried peas instead of lentils, although no guarantees on the prosperity angle if you do THAT, But if you did, it might be fun if you added a handful of frozen peas five minutes or so before you planned to serve it.

Lentil soup

Start with about a three quart saucepan. Pour some oil in the bottom. Place under low to medium heat. Add:

a medium onion or more, chopped

a medium or larger carrot, chopped

a stalk of celery or more, chopped

a clove of garlic, sliced or chopped

Cook until soft. Add:

a quart to six cups of some kind of stock, or water if you don’t have stock. Ham stock is good. Chicken stock is good. Vegetable stock is good. I’ve never tried beef stock. But water is just fine.

a half pound of lentils

Bring to a simmer. While you’re waiting for that, add:

a sprinkling of oregano

a sprinkling of parsley

a bay leaf or two, depending on size

a splash or two of soy sauce

You could also add some chunks of ham, or several slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled, or a smoked pork chop if one wandered by, or none of these if you want to keep it vegetarian. (And when I say several slices, I’m probably talking about a quarter pound. I’d say, whatever you have left over but really, WHO has leftover bacon?) You could also add a chopped potato if you want, and/or a chopped tomato, especially if you have a forlorn tomato that needs to be used for something. Mushrooms might also be a good addition.

If you’re looking to make it a little different for a change, add a little curry, to taste.

I understand there is an Italian variant for New Years called ”New Years Good Luck Soup,” with sliced sweet sausage to resemble coins, spinach to resemble cash, and a handful of ditalini.

Simmer it for awhile. I’ve done this soup in an hour.

You could serve this with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream. Most often I don’t, but it’s pretty and it can be nice.

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Dinner at The Gem diner

Fried fish sandwich and fries, and on the recommendation of our serving person, banana cream pie for dessert. The banana cream pie was a pleasant surprise. I expected it to be good; it was better than that. The ‘cream’ was more like the custard you’d find in a crème brûlée than the pudding I was expecting.

Fish sandwich and french fries at The Gem diner
Banana cream pie at The Gem diner
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The sacrifices we make…

Dinner at Rudy’s, Friday, October 4, 2019

Sometimes I’m in Oswego during the Rudy’s season, and I’m in a little bit of a hurry, and I think, do I want to go to Rudy’s? And more often than not, I do, because I realize, I CAN DO THIS FOR THE ONES WHO DON’T HAVE THE OPTION. It’s the sacrifice I make, willingly.

No need to thank me. The food is reward enough.

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Accuracy in media

I question the accuracy of media reporting sometimes. Case in point: the recent news story about whether eating red meat is OK for you or not. Here’s an article I saw about it – the top story returned to me by Google News:

ScienceAlert.com – Here’s The Real Truth About That Confusing Red Meat Study

From the story:

“These findings have led to many guidelines recommending people eat a bit less red meat to improve their health.”

Let’s look at one of those “many guidelines” – this one from the U.S. government. Their recommendation for a healthy diet: twenty six ounces/ounce-equivalents PER WEEK, combined, of meat/poultry/eggs. That means: less than four ounces A DAY. Of meat, poultry, or eggs on a 2000 calorie a day diet. Not something as extravagant as four ounces of each. No. Four ounces a day, TOTAL, combined, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Appendix 3. USDA Food Patterns: Healthy U.S.-Style Eating Pattern

Is THAT “a bit less” than what you eat now?

But wait. It goes on.

“A controversial new study has proven that actually there’s no evidence that eating red meat is bad for us, and that we can go ahead and gorge on steak and burgers once again.”

Um. No. I don’t think the new study gives the green light to “gorging on steak and burgers.”

But I’m supposed to take this story seriously? When it starts to break down the instant you take a hard look at its foundations?

By the way, the actual recommendation from the study itself was this:

“The panel suggests that adults continue current unprocessed red meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence). Similarly, the panel suggests adults continue current processed meat consumption (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence).”

You’ll note the absence of the word “gorging” in the actual study.

Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium

(To this story’s credit, it DID provide links to the stories that ultimately undercut its own credibility.)

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(n-1) won’t fit

  1. Go to freezer, remove ingredient for dinner
  2. Wonder why (n-1) things won’t fit back into the freezer where n things fit to start with.

I may never have to buy food again. I take things out of the freezer, and it never gets any emptier. The downside of that: I take out some things and ask myself, what did that used to be?