Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Cooking with Jack: Soup's On!

Welcome to another installment of
"Cooking with Jack"
,
the cooking show for
people who don't have televisions.

The other day the weather started turning decidedly less summer-like, and I got really sad because my soup pot wasn't full of soup. In order to remedy that situation, I decided to whomp up some of my famous Lentil Soup.

 
 According to the Bible, Esau was tricked into selling his birthright for a pottage of lentils, so take one pottage of lentils (roughly three cups) and rinse them with water.

Take some vegetable stock, which is just a bunch of salty vegetably water...

Mmmmmmmm... salty, vegetably water. 


Pour in a box or two of stock... or half stock and half water... or all water. Frankly, I don't care what you do!

 Add about that much salt.

 Pop a top on that sucker and let it simmer...

For three or four hours, which is just enough time to write a blog post.

 
 Or watch four episodes of Glee online.
 One time when I was making this recipe, my daughter Holly got ticked off because she wanted Potato Soup...

  
 So I peeled and diced a couple of potatoes and threw them in with with simmering lentils. She liked it better that way so I'd say that's an "optional" item. I usually throw 'em in after the lentils have been cooking for a few hours.

 
 While the lentils and spuds are cooking, cut up a large onion.

It's an old wive's tale that onions make you cry due to the fact that they produce a chemical irritant known as syn-propanethial-S-oxide.
 
 I'm not crying. I'm just thinking about a friend of mine who was killed in an automobile accident, when he was hit by a truck driver delivering onions. *sniff*

 Put the chopped onions into a bowl so that it looks all fancy like on a fancy cooking show.

 Peel a few carrots and then slice those babies up.

Fancy cooking show.
 Now take three or four stalks of celery...

 By now, you'll probably be really sick of chopping up stuff, and almost out of fancy cooking show bowls.

 Now at this point I take a few cloves of garlic that I keep in my kitchen and pretend to cut 'em up...

  But instead take out this kick-ass squeeze bottle of minced garlic. How freakin' cool is that?
 Don't mix these two implements up unless you want to get yelled at by your spouse.

Time to get cookin'! Plop some butter in a pan and add one heaping squelch of garlic.

 Dump the chopped veggies into the pan and cook on medium high-low heat until cooked.

If I had one of those cooking show mirrors, it would look like this.

 Mmmmmmm... that smells delish, doesn't it?

 Once it's all cooked up, dump the veggies into the soup pot with the simmering lentils.

Add two or three fresh tomatoes, or (if you're lazy like me) a can (or two) of diced tomatoes.

 That's right... just dump it right in there. You know you want to.

 Pour in half a glass of dry red wine. 

 Waitaminute... this is wet red wine. Dammit!

 Add a couple of tablespoons of fresh-squeezed lemon juice (and by fresh-squeezed I mean squeezed out of the lemon juice container). Cut up a fresh lemon if you want to, but don't come crying to me when lemon juice squirts up into your eye.

 Add a tablespoon or two of brown sugar or molasses.

 Add lots and lots of black pepper.

 Spice it up with some thyme, oregano and/or basil.

 I usually use red wine vinegar but we're out, so I used balsamic this go round.

 Cook another 20 minutes or so and then... lo and behold... you've got soup!

This soup is particularly good with a loaf of fresh-baked bread, so take a bowl and fill it with flour and yeast and other bread-making ingredients.
And then mix it up and bake it until it's a nice loaf of bread.

Next on Cooking with Jack:  
My secret recipe for "Snake-ghetti".



35 comments:

  1. i think my non TV may be broke when your next episode airs
    eww lol
    M

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  2. If that's a Teflon pan, with a metal turner,
    you are still gonna get yelled at by your spouse!
    Just sayin'.... lol
    Great fancy cooking show soup, Jack!

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  3. Wow, that bread is so perfect. it looks store-bought!

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  4. I really really like that shirt!!!!! That is super cool.

    Also, the soup looks good !

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  5. You seemto have much experience in slicing carrots. Future post idea: a tour of your refrigerator magnets. Is that a magnet of James Dean or Elvis? Can't tell, too fuzzy, inquiring / bored minds want to know!

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  6. Snakes are coooooool! Do they like soup?

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  7. A man who likes soup and cooks it? Sexy Jack, very sexy.

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  8. You deserve a spot on the cooking channel, you would get my vote!

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. These aren't tears of sadness because you're leaving me. I've just been cutting onions.

    I'm making a lasagna (for one).

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  11. ok...so I love your tee shirt! lol

    now, I think you might be copying me this week. I MADE LENTIL SOUP! Just a very basic easy version...yes yours looked way better. :( I might quit blogging. :(

    *sniff sniff*

    oh and I've never seen that squeeze container of garlic!! I NEED THAT!!

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  12. Jackattack...squeeze garlic?? I *love* it!!
    I hope you save some wine for me.

    This soup looks yummy, minus the onions because I am allergic. This reminds me that it's time for me to make my baked potato soup again. Mmmm Mmmmmm Mmmmmmmm

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  13. Squeeze Garlic???????????????????????? I must find some of this. LOVE the cooking shows, but gonna' have to bow out on the snakeghetti...major snake phobia here....leaving now.

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  14. This is by far the best cooking show I have ever seen! That squeeze garlic is so impressive. Dear lord that snake EWWWWWW!

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  15. HEy! Your lentil soup looks better than mine! Must be that wet red wine. Hmmmm..... Vee at http://veegettinghealthy.blogspot.com

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  16. I've never seen that squeeze garlic. NEVER. WHAT?! Seriously. I think you should do a squeeze garlic giveaway.

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  17. Okay, great soup, but . . . is that really your house? All that wood? Red fridge? Black and white tile floor? And a SNAKE?

    I want to come to your house. I do have business coming up near you. I'll even try the snake-sgetti.

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  18. That looks yummy. The snake, I mean.

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  19. I like your non-recipe recipes. I think I could make that without looking at your blog post again. That was your goal, right? To get me to not look at your blog again?

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  20. The family better watch out this week after all those beans lol. I just use the can ones myself but I made soup this week too, yum. Love watchin ya cook.

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  21. Wow Jack! That recipe looks really quick and easy. It seems like 1-2-3-SOUP! Hardly ANY prep work. Like even if I drunk the entire bottle of wet, red wine, I might actually still get the soup put together.

    Wait. No it doesn't. I think I'll just stick to the wine. :)

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  22. Jack, I made soup this week too. I did a sweet potato shrimp chowder with tons of veggies and lots of old bay seasoning. Love that stuff. It was an homage to my years living on the Chesepeake Bay, so freaking good!!! I am going to try this picture cooking thing, I'll send you a link when I get it worked out.

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  23. Soup sounds great. Snakesketti not so much.

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  24. I need squeeze garlic too!!! First time I chuckled was at your description of veggie broth--salty vegetabley water..the soup looks really great (though sadly not on my carb-controlled menu!) as does the bread--you bake homemade bread!??

    PS please keep that snake away from pasta sauce, pasta pots, collanders and grated parmesan cheese!!!! :-D

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  25. Love it... I am so jealous of that squeeze bottle of garlic... So not fair.

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  26. Oh my, I LOVE the fancy cooking show bowls! They look JUST like you're on a fancy cooking show! Whatever happened to that chicken recipe? I'm guessing Pisa found out and vetoed you.

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  27. Soup looks good. . .That's what I made yesterday. . .Except minus the lentils. . . and a lot more potatoes. . . Okay, okay, you caught me, I made potato soup! ;0) I'm not sure about Snakesghetti though. . . My husband might just leave the house and never return. . .

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  28. I am such a lazy cook.... I will be over to taste that though.. looks so yummy! Well, until the bread pic showed up & then,,, man, I love my bread & fresh baked.. OMG!

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  29. oh soup looks awesome! Just made a big pot of vegetable soup here today. Nothing like a good soup on a cold rainy day!

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  30. can I tell you how impressed I am that you baked a decent looking loaf of bread...as someone who went through h*ll trying to bake bread a while back I appreciate the delicate dance involved in producing such a fine looking loaf. As for the lentil soup....love the onions and celery but think I would have opted for canned carrots...crunchy soup carrots kill me.
    other than that...looks tasty.
    I love your house. looks homey.

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  31. ok
    why did I "read" this twice and still think
    WHO IS TAKING THE PICTURES?
    the MISSES?

    inquiring misfit minds....

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  32. Nice corn snake Jack! I wouldn't eat it though.

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  33. thanks for a new recipe... I LOVE lentils. Beautiful snake btw...
    XO M

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  34. Saw this on Jewlia's blog... oh man I'm making it tomorrow! Looks good!

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