Vegetarian in Boston

When it is still too cold for a fresh salad and too early for local young potatoes, this soup will brighten a cool spring day while bringing warmth and cheerful energy into your kitchen.

I adapted Melissa Clark’s excellent recipe into a chunkier and slightly more exotic one by adding lentils, ginger and a whole lemon instead of the zest. I also dropped out the miso as I don’t usually have it. I also made more of it.

May your early spring day be exempt of turmeric stains, and full of bright and soft spices.

Ingredients

1 whole organic lemon

2 large shallots

2 tsp fresh garlic, crushed

2 tsp fresh ginger, crushed

Olive oil

Turmeric

10 cups water

Bay leaf

1 cup yellow lentils

1/2 cup uncooked brown rice

1 lbs carrots

1 cauliflower (whole head)

Salt and lemon pepper to taste

Curry spice and other spices, such as cardamom, as desired

Method

1. Wash the lemon well, remove the seeds, chop into medium pieces and puree whole in a food processor; set aside
2. Sautee the finely chopped shallots in olive oil while finely mincing and crushing the ginger and the garlic unless you have fresh garlic and ginger cubes in the freezer; sauté those too
3. Add turmeric for a few seconds and mix, then add 10 cups of water, salt, and the bay leaf
4. Add brown rice and lentils and allow to cook for 10 minutes
5. Add the carrots and allow to cook for an additional 10 minutes
6. Add the cauliflower cut in florets; cook, covered, for an additional 10 minutes
7. Remove the lid briefly, mix, replace the lid and let cook off the heat for another 10 minutes or until the rice and lentils are tender enough to puree
8. Puree, along with the lemon set aside earlier using an immersible blender
9. Check consistency and add more water if needed
10. Adjust salt, lemon pepper and add other suitable spices as desired (I used a lemon-garlic spice mixture and some red pepper flakes; check consistency and add
11. Serve topped with the fixings of your choice; Melissa’s recipe suggested cilantro, sea salt and more olive oil; this time, I used red pepper flakes and flat leaf parsley

We usually eat this soup it with my homemade Finnish oat bread buns (I’ll publish my recipe on another occasion) and a little bit of butter, but good, fresh bread, perhaps with seeds and whole grains, would certainly do.

Lots of brightness to your day!