On Saturday I hosted the Third Annual Dinner Party, a tradition I started when all of my friends moved to Astoria after college and I wanted a way for us to share our Thanksgiving-y dishes among the urban tribe. We crammed about 25 people into my tiny apartment, and by midnight we were all stuffed and I was begging people to take some leftovers. I thought I made out with the best parts: garlic butter, cranberry maple butter, acorn-sage strudel (all my concoctions, which I didn’t get to eat because I was too busy trying everyone else’s stuff) and two mostly-full bottles of Shiraz. I’ve been sustaining myself off the leftovers and some additions this week, but I was ordered by my doctor on Tuesday to absolutely avoid alcohol for 3 weeks while my ulcer is healing up. Coffee in moderation is ok, thank god.
Believe it or not, I tried to give the wine away but got no takers, so tonight I scoured my cookbooks and ended up, as always, on epicurious.com, which I swear up and down is the best way to find recipes when you don’t know what to do with what’s in your kitchen. I found a recipe in which I had everything on hand from my pantry, the CSA, and my garden, plus a leek and three cans of broth from the store. When I eat more of it tomorrow I’ll probably take pictures to add to this post, but tonight it was all about getting dinner done.
Lentil and Roasted Garlic Soup with Seared Steak (sans steak)
Like everything I make, this is an extremely flexible recipe that requires next to no planning or accuracy. I tend to eliminate fussy prep steps, but the pan-roasted garlic with rosemary and the addition of sage to the leeks are really key to the depth and richness of the soup. I made a few changes: I used about 1 cup of black lentils instead of preparing the green and red lentils separately. I had sweet potatoes instead of yams and brocolli rabe instead of kale. I might leave out the potoates next time, but the bitterness of the rabe really worked here, especially because the greens go in wilted at the end instead of stewed through the whole process. The most important change was the switch from 7 cups of stock to about 4 cups of stock and half a bottle of red wine and a little water. I was afraid I’d made a horrible mistake when the stock, lentils and wine came to a boil and created a really….weird….kind of smell. That dissappated, though, and the result was a magnificently rich, truly meaty flavor and color that was beautiful with the wilted greens. Even for meat eaters, I would suggest forgetting the strip steak topping and buying yourself a nice bottle of red to split with the soup.
A big thank you goes out to all of my lazy-assed friends who didn’t take me up on my offer of free wine. I doubt this recipe with convince anyone to take the rest, but that’s just fine with me. I’ll just have another Leftovers and Lentils party.
