Winter Warming Lentil Soup

 I Love Soup.

Yes ma'am, soup has a big fan in me. I love it as a clear broth with little vegetables cut up in it, sometimes floating alongside delicate noodles. I love it offered in a rustic way with hearty chunks of tasty vegetables, herbs and pasta goodness or quite simply, at it's most basic, creamed and whizzed. Any way is absolutely fine by me, because I believe over winter, one can never have too much soup! Of course, it's an entirely different story once those first days of Spring hit, but while Winter is here, I am Enjoying My Soup!! Thoroughly!

This week it has been of the lentil variety. Such an easy soup to prepare with minimal time spent at the bench chopping. If you're organised, the lentils can be soaked overnight in a bowl of cold water, otherwise they will do just fine with a mere three hours or so soaking time in recently boiled water.

As with any homemade soup, much of the taste and nutrition comes from the base. My favourite base for soups is a good, hearty homemade stock. It doesn't have to me meat based, vegetable stock is fine too! We just happen to prefer ours chicken based most of the time.

Another option instead of stock is to substitute whey leftover from cheese making as a soup base. I feel it would be an enormous shame to whey'st this nutritious liquid! If you've been experimenting with homemade ricotta or similar, you will have a significant amount of whey needing to be used up and soup and bread is the perfect partnership. I love it when things slot together so neatly! Every piece of the jigsaw puzzle neatly in it's place, just as it should be. :)

Winter Warming Lentil Soup

Ingredients
2 cups green lentils (dry), soaked
2 onions, chopped
2-4 cloves crushed garlic, depending how strong you like it
1 litre homemade stock
any leftover whey you have to hand, 1- 1.5 litres is ideal
dried herbs - thyme is especially nice in this soup
1/2 cup thickened cream
sour cream to garnish
olive oil, salt and pepper


Method
1. Rinse the soaked lentils in plenty of cold running water and allow to drain.

2. In a large pot, heat a little olive oil over low heat and gently saute the onions and garlic. Once they are transparent, add the stock, whey, lentils and herbs, topping up with water if needed to cover the lentils generously. Allow to come to a boil and then reduce heat. Cover and simmer gently for around 45 minutes to 1 hour, checking the liquid level occasionally to make sure it isn't getting too low.

3. Once the lentils are tender, remove the pot from the heat and whiz the soup with a stick blender until smooth. It may take a while - those lentils can be incredibly stubborn at times! Keep persisting though - smooth is the key word here.

4. Return the soup to a gentle heat, stir through the cream and herbs and season to taste. Adjust to your favoured consistency by adding a little more stock or boiling water to suit. Ladle into bowls and serve with a dollop of sour cream and a scattering of your favourite herbs. Enjoy :)

Stick damper

Step 1. Light your fire. Campfire, brazier or chiminea..the choice is yours.

Step 2. Mix the dough; 3 cups of self-raising flour mixed to a dough by adding buttermilk.

Step 3. Attach portions of dough to stick. The messier the better, however it may want to fall off in the fire if it's as moist as ours. If you don't enjoy living with an element of risk, feel free to add more flour!

Get it on there nice and good. It will stick..eventually. 

If it doesn't, a good smoosh with both hands will no doubt bring it home ;)

Step 4. Place dough stick in hot fire. 

Rotate until done. 

Step 5. Eat. Preferably while still hot and  burning fingers. SO good!

'tis the weather for it..

 Sheesh! Hasn't it gotten cold? I find it interesting to observe how the seasons guide our activities.. be it warm or cold, there always seems to be something to do that fits in perfectly with the current weather conditions.

Take my good gardening friend, for example. She knows that the very best way to enjoy a cold, drizzly day is to toast some chestnuts over a small campfire. It's truly a tonic to warm the spirit! And they are sooo delicious, too. The bonus being that they are a very effective handwarmer!

Me? I like to rug up and take a brisk walk on a frosty morning. There is a feeling of promise for the day to come in a fresh, early morning icy walk. As long as my head, hands and toes are especially warm, I'm good to go. Our little pooch never seems to complain, either.

The youngest on the other hand ponders over where to hang her new purchase with her own saved money; an angel called 'Fyre' bought recently from the Castlemaine Artists' market. We mistakenly called it a fairy and she very soon corrected us that in her eyes it was an Angel! Tsk, tsk, how silly were we!

Angel made by etsy maker: Felt and Grain

 With constant wet weather, I finally had a chance to make that top that's been calling out for months. Some rayon op-shopped fabric was put to use and New Look 6871 was lengthened to create a tunic top that covers my behind. I always feel more comfortable when my tops are longer! Are you the same?

Our first ever art purchase!

Blue Wrens by Lyn Cooke

What is it about having a piece of original art in the home that feels one's heart with joy? Just walking past and stopping to take it in, the fine detail, what the artist was thinking whilst they were working on it and the colours chosen humbles me in a way I've never felt before.. 

Hot breakfasts are back!

This week I was extremely lucky and gifted two large containers of farm fresh jersey milk from a good friend which I enjoyed experimenting with in the form of homemade mozzarella. Yummm! I have never seen milk this thick and creamy before..even from my teenage years on a dairy farm when my parents milked friesians.
I do believe I am in love with the milk from a jersey cow!

The whey leftover was also extremely creamy and I had a go at making ricotta--the real kind, but perhaps I missed something because it didn't curd the way (whey?) I thought it would although it still made an unbelievably rich, creamy pumpkin soup! With plenty more to use up, too. Bread is suddenly bleeping on my  radar.

Cheesy experiments in a warm kitchen are a sure winner to keep the coldness away..

 And do you know what else? Someone has even thought that a lone tree in our area was feeling the cold and thoughtfully wrapped it up for the season..

Don't you just love a random yarn bomb sighting?!

Enjoy the weather out there people, be it warm or cold! :)

Daytrippers

We organised ourselves to go out for the day. We decided where to go after seeing a snippet in the newspaper. It wasn't too far to go. Glimpses of sunshine greeted us as we arrived.

We visited a market with the most wonderful displays. Local artisans in a quaint brick garden setting.
Fiber-ey, felty goodness at it's most loveliest. We lunched in the park. We browsed through an overflowing book shop. We wandered through an art exhibition, soaking up the displays.

We bought art! ART! Our first ever!!

We forgot to take the thermos but promised ourselves we would remember it next time. We would even have a bag with the makings for tea and coffee at the ready for next time a day out came calling.

Coming home to steaming cups of tea, an excited dog and a warm fire, we mulled over where exactly to hang our first art purchase. Art! Such a HUGE decision, we want to get it just right! :)

In the garden - June '13

 Over the past week we've had an unbelievable dumping of rain and our first proper frost for the year. Some days I have had two fires going inside in an effort to keep both ends of our house warm - when did it become a luxury to have dinner in a warm kitchen? I don't really know but it's ooohhh, so nice!! I sometimes recall the days when we lived in a house with central heating and how we regulated the warmth with the press of a button. Did we appreciate the instant warmth as much as we should have? Probably not, but gee, if we had it again now, I can be certain we would!

Outside, the ground is wet and the air is cold. Here is a glimpse at what's happening in our garden..

Little chooks are happy, two silkies and two hatchies from over summer - I can't believe my luck - I think the two hatchies are both hens! Small hens, but hens nonetheless. The black and tan two tone hen was originally all black and has changed colour as her feathers have grown. She was originally called Midnight, but with her change of colouring, I have been thinking of her as 'Eclipse' of late. 

Garlic is up!

And self sown silverbeet always seems to be around. We love it in a curry or frittata and any excess gets torn up and tossed to the chooks..

Our comfrey is on the way out for the season. Such a great addition to the veggie patch, being a plant tonic, compost activator and natural healer for bumps and bruises.

Something has been eating my kale!

 I have a feeling it's the three pesky swamp hens that have been hanging around lately, they have even demolished the kale in the hugulkultur bed way out the front. I hope it comes back!

Perennial leeks are calling out to be thinned and replanted. I know that with a little bit of growing room they will fill a gap in our garden over winter and provide us with virtually maintenance free offerings for soups and casseroles.

 The broccoli (in said bed waaay out front) are going amazingly well. I am very impressed with our harvests this year, which I'm putting down to the hugelkultur bed and timing the planting right..

Cauliflower on the other hand is taking much longer, as expected. I'm a little worried that the recent rains have spoiled the developing heads.

Rocket is always welcome and this is the season it grows so well. I love it when my girls race off to pick some while making their lunch, they just love to stuff it into chicken and salad wraps! Me? I just love to munch it any old time in passing..

Call me the chicken girl who chickened out. Delaying our home harvested chicken dreams for now (after the processing facility closed down!), I gave away our two excess roosters that hatched over summer, leaving us with one handsome Barnevelder fellow and a hen to add to our flock. There were no shortage of takers for the roosters, all of which I assumed would be heading to various pots but assured they would be going into enhancing flocks! Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to tackle home chicken processing....maybe one day..

With frosty mornings comes glorious sunny days and rolling the sleeves up to catch the sun is a must! Even if it's cold out there!

 I hope you manage to catch a little sun this weekend! 

What's happening in your patch? 

Moments in May - Slow Living 2013

A monthly review on our progress and achievements as we strive towards living a slower, more meaningful life.

To join in, please see below. 

{Nourish}

During May we found our eating habits changing with the weather. Hearty foods were more common, including several roast dinners. What I love most about a roast meal is using up the leftovers the following night into a whole new meal - pies are easy and quick to prepare and are pretty much unrecognizable to what they were originally (good for fussy kids). Roast chicken is a given that it will be soup, but I have been missing our homemade stock and am planning on using our next lot of leftovers to make a batch for the freezer.  I'm being very good and am not finding myself in regular dessert territory - a real achievement for me!

{Prepare} Oh gee, I don't think I've done anything this month in the way of preserving or stocking up! Let me think..nope, nada, zip!

{Reduce}
I've been making a big effort this month in eyeing off what is coming in to our home. Looking around at things in the home while decluttering makes me stop and think how it got there in the first place. Our girls' pocket money goes into a bank account for them limiting their urge to spend it in the most meaningless and wasteful ways. It sounds tough, but their savings are growing and they can finally see a reward for not squandering their hard earned money on useless stuff. I am loving a tidier house as a result.

At veggie group a few weeks ago, our host showed us her cute new gate made by her husband. I loved it so much I just had to take a snap of it - he used copper pipe from their old hot water service for the spirals and an old spoon for a handle. It got the big thumbs up and now everyone in the group now wants a gate just like this one at their place!!

The cleverly built gate from repurposed items

{Green}

We are still in good supplies with our homemade soap and I am totally happy with apple cider vinegar as a hair rinse at the moment, infused with rosemary if I have time. 

What has been a real life saver for me this month though has been a cold remedy that is sooo easy to prepare. In a mug add 2-3 good strips of lemon peel (organic if possible, not sprayed), a couple of slices of fresh ginger - don't worry about peeling it and a good teaspoon of honey. Fill with hot water and let it brew for a minute or two before drinking..it did wonders for a sore throat that was coming on last week. You'll get two cups out of the one lot of ingredients too! Lemon juice alone won't work - it needs to be the peel. ;)

{Grow}

I got around to planting out our garlic this month - close to 200 bulbs which if they grow well, will be enough to last us through the next year along with having enough to share with friends/family. 

The weather has turned bitterly cold so no more straggling tomatoes - but we are enjoying the most amazing broccoli and kale this year! The cauliflowers are also looking promising too but just take sooo much longer to grow. :)

{Create}

May really was the month I got the knitting bug again - there are so many projects on my list that I want to get to I am feeling anxious! I did however take part in my first ever test knit - a hat for Linda, along with making myself a shawlette with handspun yarn. A bit of shop knitting took place too and I went on a little excursion to the Bendigo Woollen Mills during the month to gather supplies for a gift I want to give to a friend. If only there were 30 hours in the day so I could spend more time on it!

{Discover}
For mother's day I received an e-reader and have been learning how to load books onto it. Aside from loading novels (Jodi Picoult's are my favourites - love her stories), I've been finding out how to transfer knitting patterns onto it! Imagine, a whole library of knitting and crochet patterns in your bag to use whenever you want!! I am also liking the idea of digital magazines of the crafty variety as I don't really buy them due to their clutter factor but this digital way could be the answer. Interweave Knits has been seducing me with their gorgeous patterns. More projects to add to the list..right?

 A good friend lent me a cute little read last week- so much earthy, no-fuss advice and beautiful photography - perfect for a break in front of the fire with a hot drink.

{Enhance}
My favourite good will gesture during the month was the 'Biggest Morning Tea' held at my local spinning group in order to raise funds for the Cancer Council. Having lost my own dad from cancer, it was nice to be in good company while supporting this cause. Everyone brought a plate of food to share and something to donate for the auction. So much knitted and handmade goodness made my knees go wobbly!!

I took the opportunity to do some early birthday shopping for family members, knowing that I could never find such individual gifts in the shops made with as much love and care as had been put into these items.
Wow, talk about making a person feel warm and fuzzy inside! The whole day was fantastic and heart warming!!

*Note: the knitted sandwiches and cupcakes!

{Enjoy}
As is the case so often, it's the little things I enjoy each month. A toasty warm fire, daughters who like to bake, fresh fresh eggs, a husband who takes time out from his busy day to fix my broken spinning bobbin..you know, all the bits that make up a life! I hope you enjoyed moments like these during the month. :)

Feel like joining in with the Slow Living monthly link up?  Please visit this page to participate. :)