Cohousing-L Mailing List: red lentil soup recipe; sample menu

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

Red Lentil Soup
(cheap, easy, and popular; vegetarian and non-dairy)
Cost me about $10, with all-organic ingredients.

About 48 cups, to serve about 35 as a main course:

In big pot (day before makes it really easy)
8 cups red lentils (hulled kind)
8 quarts water
10 T vegetable broth powder (or any other way of making 8 qts stock)
5 medium onions
garlic (low intensity use 3 T coarsely chopped and just put in raw; high 
intensity, press 1/2 cup garlic, stir in some olive oil and let it sit 
before adding it)
2 medium cans chopped tomatoes (28 oz cans - could use fresh tomatoes in 
season)

boil it together, simmering till lentils are mushy

cool, blend, season with 3 T cumin, 1 T salt
reheat being careful not to scorch

----------------
Last night's menu came in at about $4 per adult, even with $22 spent on 
some organic chicken because we have a number of high-protein low-carb 
dieters currently. Without the chicken, we would have come in at our 
target, which is $3.50 per adult, with the three cooks eating for free. 
Most everything served was organic. 

We had this soup, 2 store-bought baguettes, big bowl of green salad with 
feta and kalamata olives, big bowl of shredded carrots mixed with 
shredded beets, 2 kinds of homemade salad dressing, small bowl of 
Asian-style cabbage slaw in sesame dressing. Small bowl of cold 
chicken-breast cubes to garnish soup or salad, plus a side tray with more 
chicken and some devilled eggs, for the diet folks. 
Dessert was chocolate cake (donated for a birthday) and sliced oranges. 
One cook did the soup, carrots/beets, chicken and eggs; two more, a 
couple, did the other two salads, dressings, cake, and bread. It felt 
quite manageable. We can now sit back for the next six Mondays, or so, 
and enjoy the cooking of others!

A nice touch was tablecloths and candles, and spring flowers, in honor of 
Candlemas/aka Groundhog Day. A good time was had by all....

Anyone else care to share a menu with a recipe? 

Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org
http://www.ptguide.com
http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our 
photo)
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