day update and recipe

[jinian]

Got last Friday's chem quiz back. It is disappointing, to say the least. I know how to write net ionic equations. It's just that the part where people know what happens in the reaction when given only the products still appears to have a largish magical component, from my point of view. baratron? Anyone? How do you know that, given HBr + Na2CO3, you get NaBr, CO2, and H2O? (Rather than, oh, let's say hypothetically H2CO3, which may or may not exist but does seem like a fairly reasonable-looking compound.)

Was amply distracted from my injuries by going to Dilettante with rysmiel and then to two Twice Solds Taleses. My virtue in bookshop-guiding was rewarded -- I found a certain out-of-print book I've been especially looking for as a present.

I decided to make a spicy lentil soup for dinner, since my cold doesn't seem to be just a cold any more; hot, spicy things were needed to chisel loose the gunk in my throat. Also, it was cold enough today to make any kind of stew sound wonderful. When I diced the purple potatoes we happened to have, I thought they looked like they had built-in iodine, like when we stained the leucoplasts in the potato in last quarter's botany class. I wonder if that's the sort of thing that's going on, or if people have just bred them to have chromoplasts in foolish places because it's cute. Probably the latter.

Anyway, between those and the carrots and the spinach, I decided to call this recipe "Secondary Lentils." (Yes, I probably should be smacked. Sorry.)

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Ingredients:

a bit less than 1/4 cup olive oil

• about half an onion, even if you don't like it alone (like me)


• half a dozen cloves of garlic, maybe more


• assorted spices:
  cayenne pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, (garam masala if it's already mixed,) black pepper,
  --
  rosemary, bay leaf, some Apiaceae seeds that might be fennel or something but they smell like they'll work, a bit of salt


• 3 medium carrots


• a knob of ginger


• two cups lentils (green ones are very good, brown are fine too)


• water, about eight cups total


• one big potato


• a bunch of spinach


• one tbsp. red wine vinegar




Directions:


Chop the alliums. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-low heat and put into it more of the spices before the "-- " than you think you want. Turn the heat up a bit and add the alliums. When they're just a bit brown at the edges, add the carrots and ginger, and cook until those are soft, which is not all that long.

Add the lentils and stir them into the vegetable-spice-oil mix. (Kitchen superstition says doing this before adding water is a good way to distribute flavors, but I've never tested it scientifically.) Add some water and the spices appearing after the "-- ". The water thing is kind of up to you; I like the soup to be thick, so I add as little as I can get away with. If you don't care and the pot will take it, pour on all eight cups at once.

Cook that, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes, or until the lentils are soft enough to eat comfortably. Add diced potato and give it another ten minutes or so, then stir in the chopped spinach, add the vinegar (not too much or it turns the whole thing weirdly fruity), and turn off the heat.

Like lots of soups, this is better the next day.

Celery and tomatoes can go into it, too, if you like. It's forgiving stuff for the most part.
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I seem to be getting really sick. Wim says I'm feverish, whee. My brain certainly hasn't been working all day, and my throat is burning up. Doctor tomorrow.