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Lebanese Lentil and Lamb Soup

Lebanese Lentil and Lamb Soup

My soup effort came about by chance. I was going to slob around after last weekend's hosting activity (the sister J'Zo and husband G'Cro were staying with us) but when the spouse said he was going to make soup I thought I'd better take up my wooden spoon and stir. The spouse has acquired a few new cookbooks lately, one of which is Salma Hage's The Lebanese Kitchen. I'm not familiar with typical Lebanese foodstuffs, let alone recipes, but for me cooking can be like travelling without leaving the confines of my kitchen.

The ingredients for this recipe include onion, garlic, lamb, a bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, dried green lentils, sun-dried tomatoes, baby spinach and mint. The preparation involves the usual peeling, chopping and cooking. I gently fried the onion and garlic, then added the lamb and browned it evenly. Then I made a mistake. The recipe says, "Pour in the hot stock and add all the herbs." I did, but then read that I should have waited to add the mint at end with the sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. Uh oh! Well, it can't be helped.

Onward and upward. I finished the soup and left it overnight for our lunch today. I dawdled home from an errand, stopping from time to time to note particular features along the Dodder: a cluster of snowdrops here, a swan preening there. The spouse phoned me to remind me that Juno (my mother-in-law) was joining us for lunch. And there was a rugby match starting within the hour. I picked up speed and hurried home.

Lentil and lamb soup
I was just in time. The table was set, Juno was seated comfortably and delicious aromas met my nostrils. We sat down and ate this substantial soup. Lovely! Not too fiddly, not too difficult to get the ingredients. I hope to make this again.

Book Buzz

This month my book group read Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris. I hadn't quite finished it and some group members had barely started it. I wasn't sure whether or not I liked the book. I could appreciate that it was well written but I couldn't bring myself to like the protagonists. The review at this link - Booksnob - may be useful to you. There is a fleeting bee reference:

Besides the pink cherry tree, there was not much in the garden: a stretch of lawn, now unmown, between the tree and the window, two lolling bloomy borders of lupins not yet in bud... Many sensations of pleasure made up the moment and hummed in the silence between Max and Karen like bees in a tree. 

My edition was published by Vintage and the first page of the preliminaries has a picture of two bees!

News Stories about Bees




Bye for now.

Minnie
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