Saturday, December 6, 2008

Mixed bean soup with orange, carrot and coriander

I made the worst soup ever last week. It sounded great, but unfortunately I put too much Pesto in it, and it was gross. So this weekend, to redeem myself, I've made a soup that I really liked.

This is a nice combination of fruity flavours and semi-spicy vegetables. The beans provide a large dose of protein and make the soup rich and hearty. Perfect for when you're about to head out into the cold.

Mixed bean soup


Ingredients

3 Satsumas or Mandarin oranges, coarsely chopped
Splash of orange juice, splash of sherry or cooking sherry
2 tbsp fresh ginger or ginger purée
1 cup of mixed soup beans (split peas, lentils, barley etc)
4 large carrots
2 medium onions
1/2 bulb of garlic
1 small red chilli
sea salt and ground black pepper
Fistful of fresh coriander

Directions

The bean mix needs to be soaked overnight in a large bowl with about 3 inches of water covering them. (If you're using canned beans you can reduce the cooking time to about 20 minutes, and you don't need to soak).

Cook the beans in a pot with 6 cups of water, vegetable or chicken stock for about 40 minutes until tender.
Meanwhile fry the onions, garlic, chilli in a pan until soft, then stir in the ginger and leave to one side.

Put the carrots on to boil separately for 10-15 minutes until starting to soften, then put them to one side too.

Once the beans are soft, sieve out about half of them and put them in a blender with half the carrots and the fried onions, garlic and chilli. Blend for a few seconds.

Pour everything into the pot with the beans. Add the oranges and half the coriander.

Simmer for another 10 minutes until flavours are combined.

Serve hot with some fresh coriander on the top.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Overheard on the train

Snippets of conversations on the train recently:

Some girls talking

girl1: He's taking advantage of you. 
girl2: I'm only lending him the $800
girl1: But he only needs it to pay the cops, then he's going to dump you!
girl2: But...
girl1: And he's sleeping with his ex-girlfriend!
girl2: He's only sleeping on her floor while he's looking for a new place.
girl1: [actually slaps girl2 due to exasperation]

Some girls who work at Shaw technical support...

girl1:"I had a customer complaining that everyone was short and fat. And I thought he was a nut job. But it turned out he was watching everything set in widescreen on a normal TV."
girl2: "I spent an hour today trying to teach a guy how to turn his tv off. He said it was grey and not black. We figured out he was only turning his cable box off, not his tv."

A guy and a girl chatting

guy: I may be going to see Slipknot
girl: With your millionaire girlfriend?
guy: She's not my girlfriend.
girl: You should make her your girlfriend
guy: Well, she's kinda tall, and proportionally wide. Still, she'd pay my debts off for me.
girl: ...
guy: She told me she had a dream where she'd had sex with me. I said "How was it?". She said "I woke up happy."
girl: That's not ambiguous is it. You have to date her.