Sometimes you’re too sick
to want to cook. Sometimes the required trip to the grocery store is just too
much to face, even if you think you could possibly muster the energy to cook
(you may or may not be sick – let’s face it, we all have days/weeks/months like
this). And you might still be hungry, in spite of being sick, but because of
the aforementioned grocery non-trip you have nothing in the house. Except
ingredients for this.
You can always, always have ingredients for this soup in
the house; and it’s delicious and filling and hardly any work at all, so you
can ignore it on the stove while you take a little nap on the couch. And if
your little nap turns into a big nap, you’re not going to ruin the soup; it keeps well and reheats beautifully; you can double and triple it as long as you have a big enough pot; and it makes it to the table in just over half an hour, which is about the same amount of time it would take you to drive to the store to buy soup that someone else has made.
Shorbat Adas (Middle Eastern Lentil Soup)
4 cups water
4 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups small red lentils
1/2 cup finely diced onion (or substitute onion powder if you don’t have fresh onions in the house)
1 garlic clove, grated or minced (or substitute garlic powder if you’re really serious about the not-shopping)
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh parsley (but only if you have it, because it’s totally optional)
3/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2-1 teaspoon turmeric
Lemon wedges, for serving
Rinse and drain the lentils. Combine all the ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for about 35 minutes. Stir the soup whenever you think about it so that the lentils don’t stick to the bottom of the pot (more important at the very beginning and the very end).
Serve with lemon wedges – they really make
a difference in brightening up the flavor of the soup, and you can use the
leftover lemon to make hot toddies for your cold.
(You can add diced veggies to this if you'd like to make it a more substantive soup, but I like it as-is.)
