Curried Red Lentil Soup with Sweet Potatoes and Greens

With my first week of my new clinical comes my first soup (I talked about my plan in the last post). I began my new soup for dinner plan with a recipe adapted from Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons, by Nava Atlas. It's a great fall soup, with lots of flavor, color, and goodness!

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups dried red lentils, rinsed and sorted
• 2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 2 teaspoons good-quality curry powder, more or less to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 6 to 8 ounces Swiss chard or spinach
• Juice of 1 lemon or lime
• Salt to taste

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and garlic and saute over medium heat until golden, about 10 minutes. Add the water, followed by the lentils, sweet potatoes, and seasonings. Bring to a rapid simmer, then lower the heat. Cover and simmer gently until the lentils are mushy and the potatoes are done, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, wash the greens, remove stems and midribs, then slice into narrow shreds. Stir into the soup along with the lemon juice. If the soup is too thick, adjust the consistency with a small amount of water.

Continue to simmer gently until the greens are just done, about 5 minutes for spinach and 10 to 15 minutes for chard. Season with salt. Serve at once, or if time allows, let the soup stand off the heat for an hour or two. Heat through before serving.

Serves 6.

World Bread Day, gluten-free style!

Although I should be studying, I found out today that it is World Bread Day from Rachel at Coconut & Lime's recent post and thought I should post some of my recent creations. (And I just found out that I'm still maintaining an 'A' average in my nursing lecture class so I deserve a break!)

I've been trying to be good about adhering to my wheat-free lifestyle and recently baked some delicious bread as well as pumpkin muffins, both gluten free. My weakness for pumpkin bread almost made me jump off the wagon on Thursday, when a fellow nursing student brought in a freshly baked loaf of pumpkin bread for us all to snack on as we crammed for our midterm. (Ironic thing is this guy has Celiac Disease but still bakes with wheat, he just doesn't eat it). My strength prevailed but only because I made a mental promise to myself to bake up some gluten-free pumpkin muffins this weekend! The chocolate chips in the recipe have had mixed reviews so far, from those that have sampled the muffins. If it doesn't appeal to you, it would be great substituted with pecans, raisins or even nothing at all!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

• 1/2 cup softened butter or margarine
• 2 eggs + 4 egg whites, lightly beaten
• 2 1/2 cups Gluten-Free Pantry's Muffin and Scone Mix
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips, raisins, or nuts
  

Beat butter until fluffy. Add egg mixture and beat to combine. Toss muffin mix with cinnamon
and add to butter mixture. Fold in pumpkin and mix to combine. Fold in chocolate chips or
raisins. Spoon into prepared muffin tins. Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Yield: 24 muffins.

I also baked bread earlier last week, as I mentioned. My new idea to save money during my nursing clinical days is to make a big pot of soup, homemade bread and bring that with me each day. So I should be adding plenty of soup recipes if I follow through with this plan. But on to the bread:

I used Pamela's Amazing Wheat-Free Bread Mix and followed the recipe on the bag. I followed a suggestion on the bag and added some seeds - pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower seeds, during the mixing cycle (I used a breadmaker). The bread turned out really good and it was sooo easy! I've put two slices per ziplock bag and put them in the freezer for easy thawing.

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread

Oh, I love fall! I look forward to this time all year round. I created this the other night when I felt inspired to bake something sweet and a little spicy with my leftover zucchini and yellow squash from the farmer's market. With the addition of pumpkin puree, it is so moist and delicious that you'd never believe it's gluten free.

• 1/3 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1 cup Turbinado Sugar
• 2 large Eggs
• 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 2 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour (such as Bob's Red Mill)
• 2-1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
• 4 tsp. ground Cinnamon
• 1-1/2 tsp. Xanthan Gum
• 3/4 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 2 cups finely grated zucchini (I used 1 zucchini and 1 yellow squash)
• 1/2 cup chopped Pecans or Walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease two 8 x 4-inch nonstick pans. (For smaller loaves, use three or four 5 x 3-inch nonstick loaf pans.

2. In large bowl, cream oil, sugar, eggs, pumpkin puree, and vanilla together with electric mixer until very smooth. Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon, xanthan gum, salt, nutmeg and cloves. Mix thoroughly on medium speed until thoroughly combined.

3. Quickly (but gently) stir in zucchini, and nuts. Batter will be somewhat thick. Turn batter into prepared pans.

4. Bake 8 x 4-inch loaves for 60-65 minutes; 5 x 3-inch pans for 45 minutes. Place foil over bread during final 20 minutes of baking to reduce over-browning. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack. Cool thoroughly before slicing.

Serves 12.