French lentil soup with sausage and potato

I've taken to making a big batch of this thick, hearty soup quite regularly. It makes a nice hot lunch for S to take to work and also fortifies us for lifting heavy babies. A big pot lasts us a week and is great value for the cost of the ingredients, most of which are common pantry items.

I use a chunk of parmesan in place of salt because it adds flavour as well as saltiness. I usually make this soup with either potato or chickpeas, but I've listed both here for an extra-chunky, winterized version. I hope you find this recipe as delicious as we do. S is not big on veggies let alone lentils, but even he loves the flavour parade this soup brings out.

French lentil soup with sausage and potato

2 Tbsp olive oil for frying

2 medium onions, diced

2 carrots, diced

2 celery sticks, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup lentils de Puy

1 can diced tomatoes

1 tsp herbes de Provence

2 bay leaves

1 chunk (or rind) of parmesan cheese

8 cups water

1 package “Little Gems” new potatoes, quartered, or 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

meat from 2 sausages (chorizo, mild Italian or hot Italian are nice)

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

chopped parsley

Put the lentils in a bowl and rinse with cold water four times or until the water runs clear. Set aside.

On the stove, warm the olive oil in the bottom of a big stock pot on medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the onions, celery and carrot. Stir until tender but not browned, about 10 minutes. Add the minced garlic after five.

Add the rinsed lentils, tomatoes, bay leaves, herbes de Provence, parmesan and water to the pot. Stir well, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

If using chickpeas, drain them in a colander and rinse under cold running water. Set aside.

Score the sausages lengthwise with a sharp knife to separate the meat from the skins. Discard the skins and set aside the meat. I usually crumble it in by hand when it's time to add it to the soup.

After the soup has simmered for thirty minutes, add the potatoes and/or chickpeas and chunks of sausage meat. Bring back to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes, topping up with half a cup of water if needed.

Stir in the balsamic vinegar and serve. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley.

Sweet potato and white bean soup

This is a great tasting soup. It's a Jill Dupleix recipe that I modified. Her recipe is here. I didn't have curry powder, so I substituted ground cumin and coriander instead. I also added bay leaves and a parmesan rind to the stock while the sweet potatoes were cooking, just to up the flavour ante. I topped it with a swirl of sour cream, paprika and olive oil, and scattered over some fresh coriander. This soup is nice at lunchtime when served with some crusty bread.

Rustic potato rösti for breakfast - yay weekends!

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This is my weekend morning potato specialty. It's a rustic rösti adapted from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie, the best recipe I've found for this Swiss specialty. It takes a bit of time, but so do most good things in life, so I don't mind.

Rösti is of Swiss origin where the farmers of yesteryear used to eat it for breakfast, according to Wikipedia. Thankfully it has since been adopted worldwide by potato lovers like my friend the Film Cricket, who first introduced me to rösti at Toronto's Marché Movenpick (now Richtree), where they serve it with sour cream and chives. So yummy. Now when I make it for breakfast, we eat with eggs, bacon and toast. Equally scrumptious.

Potato rösti
serves two

one russet potato
one clove garlic
one sprig rosemary (whole)
olive oil
butter

Preheat the oven to 400. Wash and peel the potato. Top and tail it, and cut it in half. Cut each half into thin matchsticks. Rinse the rosemary sprig. Peel the garlic clove (I smash it with the flat of my chef's knife so that it cracks a bit but is still essentially whole).

Heat up a non-stick, ovenproof frying pan. Add a splash of olive oil and heat. Melt a tablespoon of butter into the olive oil. Add the potatoes, the garlic clove and the rosemary sprig. Stir in the pan for 10 minutes until softened and starting to colour.

Put in the oven for 25 minutes until crispy and golden. I check it after this, and sometimes cook it maybe 10 minutes more.

Mashed potatoes with ricotta cheese

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Happy New Year everyone!!

This year I tried something different with the mashed potatoes for Christmas dinner. I boiled them in the usual way and added just a wee bit of melted butter, but also mixed in a whole tub of ricotta cheese and some finely chopped green onions (white parts only). I then broiled the mashed potatoes in the oven for a few minutes and sprinkled them with some chopped green onion rings to give them colour.

These mashed potatoes were very tasty and creamy and didn't dry out at all the next day, which is an important bonus when eating a plate of leftovers!

Another healthier option that my Mom often chooses is to mash some boiled cauliflower into the potatoes — it also makes them soft and creamy AND you get the nutritional benefits of cauliflower.

In the photo, the mashed potatoes are sitting with some homemade sausage and apple stuffing. I'll post that recipe tomorrow.

Rösti and smoked salmon with apple salad

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I loved the hot corner of the Pelican Grill's Battle of the Salmons, so I decided to make my own version using the smoked salmon portion that we bought there.

It was also a great excuse to finally try my hand at rösti. I love to get it at the Richtree restaurant in the Rideau Centre. It's one of those dishes that I love, but because I don't eat it often I sometimes forget that it exists. Shameful, I know.

I put the salmon portion on a plate and served it with an apple/cherry tomato salad, a dollop of plain yogurt mixed with dried shallots and thyme (because I didn't have sour cream and chives), and I made my own rösti.

Rösti

one sweet potato
one russet potato
one small onion
one apple, cored and halved
shredded cheddar cheese (about a quarter cup)
salt and pepper

Over a cutting board, grate the potatoes using a box grater. Handful by handful, squeeze the excess water out of the grated potatoes over the sink. Place the squeezed potato in a large mixing bowl. Repeat with the rest of the potatoes, the onion and half of the apple (cube the other half for the salad).

Add the grated cheddar cheese to the rest of the ingredients in the mixing bowl, season and mix well with a fork.

In a frying pan on medium heat, add a couple of glugs of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the rösti mixture to the pan, patting it down to form a dense pancake.

Flip it when the bottom has started to crisp up and turn golden, about seven minutes on my stove.

Slide a spatula underneath the sides to loosen the rösti pancake. Take a large dinner plate and place it upside down on top of the frying pan. Turn both upside down so the rösti slides out onto the plate. Add more oil to the pan and slide the rösti back in to cook the other side.

It's crunchy, cheesy and delicious. Next time I'm going to experiment with some paprika and chopped herbs, and make this as an afternoon snack!