hearty Tunisian tomato stew

A few months back, Mary gave me some cookbooks, including Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven. The recipes are heavenly, healthful and sinfully simple.
Last night, with a nearly empty pantry and fridge, I had to make do. I realized that I haven't been eating lentils much lately, so I searched the cookbook and found a recipe in Vegetable Heaven for Tunisian tomato soup with lentils and chickpeas. Sadly, I didn't even have tomatoes, so Fred had to stop and buy some on his way over. One heaping ladleful and we were both full. We're having leftovers for lunch and likely for a quick dinner or tomorrow's lunch. The recipe yielded six hearty portions of a stewlike soup!
Here's the modified recipe:
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup lentils, rinsed (I soaked them with the spices this morning because I realized I didn't have tomatoes and couldn't cook the soup!)
1 28-ounce can tomatoes (crushed or diced)
1 green onion, chopped (recipe calls for 4 cups minced onion. Again, I was out of this! My pantry is so sad!)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste, plus a few healthy shakes of red pepper flakes
handful cilantro, chopped
1 teaspoon olive oil
Heat oil over medium heat and add garlic and onion. Cook two minutes, then add the lentils (which have had been soaking with the spices). Add water to cover, then add tomatoes and chickpeas. Simmer 10 minutes, then season with salt and pepper. Serve with cilantro.
I think we've been in a bit of a rut lately. We've been eating a lot of tofu and kimchi, and black beans and rice. Fred actually said last night that he's craving broccoli rabe. We found a few more recipes that we want to try soon: kale crisps (a snack food), spinach soup with basil and dill, sweet potato and pea patties, Tuscan bean and pasta stew... Though it doesn't feel like winter today, my stomach is ready for winter foods.
I also found a recipe for avocado-chocolate pie. I think I'll try it this weekend. Avocado-chocolate "milk"shakes are pretty good, so I hope I'll like this!

From scratch

On Thanksgiving (and most every other day of the year), my mother makes absolutely everything from scratch, from pie dough to stuffing/dressing. Fresh herbs in the turkey, homemade whipped cream for the half-dozen pies we made. Even the cranberry relish in later years was from scratch (my sister makes a cranberry-orange relish).
For foodies like us, dear readers, this is the norm. It's from scratch because we don't know any other way. We wouldn't dream of buying the pumpkin pie or (gasp!) plopping a tub of Cool Whip on the table. (Read the ingredients on that stuff. Ick!)
This year I'm not going home because I have to work today, the day after Thanksgiving and Saturday. I'll be at a new house where I know things will be different, perhaps some things a little less homemade.
For my mom and me, Thanksgiving is about the cooking. We stay up late the night before finishing pies, then rise early on Turkey Day to start the bird. It's nothing fancy, just good, from-scratch homemade food.
I was riding on the elevator today, and I heard people talking about letting the grocery store make the turkey or the dressing -- even the whole meal! To me, Thanksgiving is just not a day for shortcuts.
What do you think?

A book for mini-cooks

I believe that like compassion and humility, an interest in good food and cooking should be cultivated in children. The Small Fries cookbook is a great place to start. It's a cookbook for kids featuring more than 100 pages of recipes, tips and activities. All of the recipes were submitted by kids. And it's no small potatoes that Teri Campbell shot all of the art for the book. The photos are absolutely gorgeous...


Proceeds from the sales of the book will be donated to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. So you can give this to a child you know and also help some children you don't know.

Purchase the cookbook online or at Joseph-Beth Booksellers ($9.95).