Irony

Irony can be uncanny. In this morning’s post I typed the words, “I just have a feeling today is a day that I just need to push through and get it done and over with,” but I deleted those words because I thought they were silly. I thought, “Lindsey, how negative! There’s no reason to think like that, there’s nothing wrong with today, you have the world in front of you! Delete those words and don’t spread negativity”. So I deleted away. Not even thirty minutes later as I was scrubbing out my cruddy fridge I received a phone call with some not-so-good news about a family member’s health. The whole day ended up becoming rather hazy, emotional yet distant, and just different. It’s just rather uncanny, looking back, that I had those premonitions about the day. Ironic how that works!

I came home tired and ready to put my feet up and watch some mind-numbing tv. Good thing my trusty crock pot already had dinner hot and ready for me!

Simple Lentil Soup

• 2 cups lentils
• 2 cups low sodium vegetable stock
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup salsa
• 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large sweet onion, chopped
• 3 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1/2 large red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 cups frozen spinach
• kosher salt (to taste)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon chili pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin

Chop your onion, celery, carrots and red bell pepper. You should have equal parts of each.

Make your soffrito! I totally learned about this term from reading Julie’s post about the culinary soup class she went to! I took the liberty of adding red bell pepper and no garlic because I very tragically was out of fresh garlic! I promise I was only crying from the onions…not from being out of garlic.

Meanwhile, start dumping stuff in the crock pot! Isn’t that the beauty of the crock pot? You can dump stuff in and a beautiful dinner comes out. Add your lentils:

Salsa! (Wholly Salsa and Wholly Guacamole review to come soon!) I love adding salsa to soups as another liquid because it adds another great layer of flavor!

Vegetable stock! I usually use half stock and half water with soups – cuts down on sodium, but still has flavor. I can always add further flavor as needed (as evidenced here with the soffrito and variety of spices I used).

Add your soffrito! (I am kind of obsessed with that word.)

And frozen spinach! Two full cups and its a great way to add some flavor and nutrients to a soup without altering flavor! I love adding spinach to soups and chilis.

Then some more flavor – garlic powder, chili powder, kosher salt, cumin and oregano.

And voila! Dinner is ready! I let it simmer on low for seven hours and it was perfect when I got home (although I’ll probably add some water when I reheat leftovers).

The above turned into this thick, flavorful soup:

Dinner is served:

I totally snagged some vegan-friendly potato rolls from work tonight to go with soup. Totally not whole grain, but after the day I had I just wanted to sink my teeth into some comforting bread. Total comfort food. I relished it.

I also had dessert tonight! I actually have frequently been having frozen fruit for desserts, but rarely show it on the blog because I’ll usually be done blogging by then. Ross made our new favorite fruit soft serve tonight: frozen bananas plus frozen cherries! So amazing! It’s also great with a tablespoon of cocoa powder added! That Gena knows her stuff – we love playing with variations on her banana soft serve! To stick with the “I need comfort food” theme, I added vegan-friendly chocolate chips on top. Wonderful. (Please excuse the flash and the pictures I was editing in the background. At this point I was “game over” as far as effort into today went.

Lots to do tomorrow and the weekend, but I have one fun thing in store! I can finally share the upcoming fitness challenge Ross and I will be embarking on! As an early birthday present for him, I got him this:

So excited! I’ll go over all the reasons why we wanted to do this, what we hope to get out of it, where I got it from, how much I got it for, etc. on Monday when we officially begin our challenge.

Time for today to be over. Good night!