Pottage

It all began with an argument.

The roomie...uh...I suppose I should name her, as she is a recurring character in my narratives. Her name is Michelle. Anyhow. The roo...Michelle and I had a good-natured argument a few months back concerning what, exactly, Esau sold his birthright over.*

*We both pride ourselves in how good we are at bible trivia. She usually wins.

She claimed it was porridge and I said it was something that, now that I thought about it, was unidentifiable. Pottage? Potage? I'd gotten the idea that it had something to do with beans, probably from a sermon or two in my youth. (Further, I'd made a "red bean" connection somehow, but that was probably because it was Esau, y'know.)

After it became clear that I wouldn't win the argument until I looked it up and settled it, I broke down and looked it up. I was right, but I still wasn't sure what "potage" was. Now positively on a quest, I looked that up. It's "a soup made from lentils." Hrmph. Ok.

I thought no further on it, until she brought home a package of Alessi Sicilian Lentil Soup. I'd heard of lentils all my life--usually in connection with food pyramid classes, in the "legume" section--but had never tasted one to my knowledge. We cooked it up for dinner and it was...delicious.

What a delightful surprise!

Thus, we bought a couple more packs. Then I decided to really get smart and shop at the commissary, which didn't carry them. Hrm. So I went by Food World a week later. Nope. Winn-Dixie? No. I don't know what happened to these nifty little soup packs all of a sudden, but we were lentil-soupless suddenly.

Today at Walmart, I had one of those silly breakthroughs that shouldn't ever need to happen in the first place because you never even knew the wall was there and it's a silly wall. I picked up a package of dried lentils and decided to just cook my own darn soup. I have no idea why it hadn't occurred to me before to just try my hand at homemade, but there you go.

I came home and found this recipe on the internet. I cooked up a mess of pottage tonight. You should be advised that I added about two tablespoons of beef boullion and a pinch of red pepper flakes to the mixture, and a couple more cups of water. Other than that, nothing changed.

That soup was excellent.

Not only is it very high in dietary fiber and protein and low in fat, but it has an excellent flavor. Also, it cooks quite quickly. Lentils don't even need to be soaked first. (!) They cook about the same speed as white rice.

The dish was almost good enough to sell your birthright over. ;) Try it.

This entry was posted by diana and filed under home.

5 comments

Comment from: Hinermad

Diana,

Synchronicity strikes again. Just this evening I was looking at a display of Progresso brand canned soups and noticed the lentil. Until now I thought lentils were lighter in color, almost like split peas. Guess I should pay better attention.

You and Michelle both seem to know your Old Testament better than I do. I always thought Esau sold out for a plate of stew.

No thumb in this recipe? (Grin)

Dave

03/17/06 @ 22:26

Comment from:

G’morning, Dave.

I guess you could call it stew. Lentil soup can be quite stew-ish, depending upon what you put in it, and we have no way of knowing what was in that mess of lentils way back when.

And you’ve been paying attention just fine. Lentils rather look like split peas in the dried peas/beans section. For a long time, that’s precisely what I thought they were. :) Wikipedia has a nice little writeup on them with a picture. Apparently, they can be anywhere from black to red to light green.

This recipe was completely vegetarian. ;)

03/18/06 @ 07:05

Comment from: KathyG

Hi Diana,

That looks like a good recipe alright. I’ll have to try it next week.

One of the things I love about lentils is that they’re so filling. Stick-to-your-ribs filling. They seem to be the only thing I can eat for lunch that doesn’t let me (and my blood sugar) down by 4 p.m. My one suggestion on the subject is to up your fluid intake a little, for two reasons:
1. it helps your body adjust to processing all that fibre; and
2. if you start feeling a bit “empty", it really does bring back the feeling of fullness.

Oh, and they freeze well too, so you can have nearly-instant meals on hand.

Cheers,
Kathy

03/18/06 @ 15:42

Comment from:

Thanks for the tips, Kathy. :) I’m quite in love with lentils for many of the same reasons. The fact that you don’t have to plan ahead for the meal is a huge plus, I must say. I’ve also found them to be delightfully filling.

03/18/06 @ 17:41

Comment from: Kathleen

My daughter, Courtney, loved to cook from a very early age and one of her first creations was what we came to call Courtney’s Lentil Soup. She started the lentils off in chicken broth then added cooked ground sausage and pico de gallo. She served it with cornbread and it was delicious. Another time she cooked the lentils, again in chicken broth, with carrots, onion, chopped celery and then added a can of cream of celery soup to make it thicker. It was also very good.

03/20/06 @ 11:54

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