Soup

I've been digging through the deep freeze lately trying to weed out some of the older stuff, and use it up. I was in for another dig yesterday when I discovered a kg bag of goat stewing pieces, and figured I'd try to whip up a stew with them. So I let them thaw in the fridge for a day, and today took them out to start the stew. Note in the recipe below if you are going straight from the freezer then add 10 or 15 minutes to the oven time - but more on that in a bit. First a comment on what makes this "kid friendly". A couple of things really, but mainly the fact that I pureed a number of the ingredients that I knew the boys would balk at if they saw them in there. Namely - the whole 2 cups of carrots, and 2 of the 3 cups of potato. The 3rd cup of potato I diced up really small figuring that they would not balk at small pieces - and my gamble paid off. I did not have any turnip on hand, but I'd have pureed it as well if I did. Another thing which makes this kid friendly is that I meticulously picked through the goat to eliminate the copious bones. Goat bones can be small, and sharp - definitely a hazard for even an older child. Though if you wanted to go for a more authentic Mediterranean feel, you could eliminate that step.

Something I've been doing a lot of lately with meats is roasting them in the oven in my cast iron frying pan, and collecting and saving the juices which result. Though clearly in this case we would use the juices for the stew. In fact, I also dug out some juice I saved the other night from some pan-fried minute steaks, as well as some home canned lamb broth that my wife and I canned up early last year.

This is a yummy “cleaning out the veggie drawer” sort of soup. It’s lentil based, but uses pretty much whatever veggies you happen to have on hand. I’ve made it most often with zucchini because we buy an annual share in a CSA, and what farm doesn’t have too much zucchini in late summer? This is a great one to get going in a slow cooker, too, and reheats really well from leftover.

I’ve made this soup a number of times and each time it has proved to be a satisfyingly hearty bowlful, particularly well suited to warding off the chills of late winter. It takes awhile to cook, but is absolutely worth wait!

I really love lentil dhal. It’s a good stick-to-the-ribs Indian porridge of soft lentils and spices that always manages to hit the right spot and only gets better the longer it has been “left over”. It can ben eaten on its own, over rice, or as a side dish with a variety of curries.