What Do You Mean You Don't Have a Ricer?

i wish i had a submersible hand held blender...

I had a huge lentil soup triumph tonight. it was tasty AND still mostly orange! amazing. I put orange lentils (1c), an onion, a carrot, the insides of some tomatoes (I made stuffed tomatoes yesterday so I had the insides left over), a potato, and some spices in a pot with water, veggie broth, apple juice, and a little vinegar (8 cups liquid in all). cooked it for a while. then i put it in the blender (a little at a time, not wanting a repeat of the LAST lentil soup experience) until it was all blended up. Then a little lemon juice and YUM! It was good.

I also made mashed-potato stuffed bell peppers tonight. Stuffing bell peppers is totally labor-intensive, what with the gutting and all. but i did it. then i "parboiled" them for a few minutes, let them drain, and sauted up some onions, more green peppers (the recipe calls for red but we don't have those here), and some carrots (my own addition). i mixed that with the mashed potatoes i already made (before the parboiling), added some spices, then stuffed all that into the peppers. I ended up putting the peppers in a bread-loaf pan (lined with foil cuz it was kinda rusty) because it was the only thing deep enough. Then I put tomato sauce around the bottom half of the peppers, covered it all in foil, and baked it for 20 minutes. then i took the foil off and baked another 10 minutes (while I reheated the soup and the leftover mashed potatoes on the stove), and voila! yumminess in a nice little self-contained edible green package. :-)

for dessert: assir farowla (strawberry juice). about a pound of strawberries, and two lemons (deseeded and peeled because, umm, eew) into the blender (in two batches unless you want a mess) with a little apple juice and some water. pour into a cup. refrigerate a little while. stir, add water if needed, and enjoy. you can also freeze it in mugs or little bowls for a delightful sorbet-esque dessert. all natural!

posted by Teri @ 6:01 PM