Vegetable Red Lentil Stew, & 

Palak Paneer (Indian Spinach & Cheese)

I was busy doing summery things recently, including making dinner for special visitors ... Vegetable Red Lentil Stew, and Palak Paneer (Indian Spinach & Cheese). These are the leftovers. 

The Lentil Stew is based on Supper with Michelle's recipe. I say "based on," because 1) I used the Instant Pot (not sponsored ) and so needed to modify the instructions, and 2) I had no zucchini, the carrots weren't good, and after cleaning and tidying the house, I was just too tired to chop onions or cut up potatoes. (Apologies to Michelle. 😐) Instead, I used frozen chopped mirepoix mix (carrot, celery, onion), as well as frozen chopped broccoli. The lentils ended up very creamy. I hope that next time, I'll make it according to the recipe. My visitors and I enjoyed this version, so thanks, Michelle! 😃

The Palak Paneer is from Madhu Gadhia's New Indian Home Cooking, which has a lot of great, simple, healthy recipes. The Paneer (cheese) was also homemade, leftovers from the freezer. I don't actually press the Paneer very thoroughly, so I just broke it up and stirred it into the spinach. The key here seems to be slowly cooking the spinach for at least a half-hour, until it smells less like raw spinach. We also enjoyed this! 

Supper with Michelle Website, Vegetable Red Lentil Stew

Shorbet Adds 

(Egyptian Spiced Creamy Lentil Soup)

This was from a recipe of Claudia Roden in The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Although the soup looks somewhat thick here (esp as it was the next day), it was actually fairly creamy in texture. I ground up the dry red lentils, added water to them, covered them, and let them soak for a few hours, before adding them to the soup. (Red lentils don't usually need to be soaked, except by me. )

Aside from the lentils, this also contains onions, olive oil, ground cumin and coriander, and salt. A pinch of Indian pav bhaji masala spice mix stood in for ground red chili pepper. I used frozen chopped mirepoix (onion, carrot, and celery) for the carrot and celery in the recipe, as that's what I had.

The soup is supposed to be served with a garnish of fried onions, but I was too tired to add that. For the toasted pita bread croutons, I toasted half a pita, and then broke it up into irregularly-shaped, crunchy pieces. Instead of adding lemon juice directly to the soup right after it was cooked, I just squeeze a few drops of fresh lemon juice into the bowl, before I eat it.