cynic51, god of productivity. Plus Soup!
Today I got 8 zillion things done, including a walk to the post office, errands at three different stores, ripping 50+ CDs (and counting) to MP3, 3 loads of laundry, changing the sheets, sweeping 4 rooms, vacuuming 3 rooms, removing clutter from 3 parts of the house, picking up trash outside, catching up on my email, and making delicious soup. I'm guessing the last of these is the most interesting to you, so here is the recipe for Grain Soup. This not the most exciting name in the world, but that's the one my mother uses so I guess I'll stick with it. Ingredients:
1 package Manischewitz Vegetable Soup Mix - the kind with a little spice package inside the main package.
Hold on! I thought we were making actual soup? This is a mix! I hear you cry. Hold your horses. Using mixes as a starting point and adding many and varied ingredients to make them awesome is a time honored tradition. Heck, there's at least one cookbook about doctoring cake mixes to make them delicious instead of merely edible. But I digress.
1/4 cup wild rice
1/4 cup steel cut oats
1/4 cup brown rice
1/4 cup lentils
1/4 cup whole kasha
Bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Add the main part of the soup mix (not the spice package) and all of the grains listed above to the water. Turn the heat down low and cover the pot tightly. Cook for 2 hours. Stir occasionally, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pot because it does stick to the bottom. At the 1:45 mark, add the spice package. Salt & pepper to taste. The resulting soup will be very thick and tasty.
If you want to make it even thicker, use chicken or vegetable broth instead of water. I see no reason that you couldn't add carrots, celery or pearl onions, but then it would be REALLY thick.
One plus to this recipe is that even the smallest package of the respective grains available in stores will yield many, many pots of this soup. It's totally vegetarian friendly, and the amount of onion in it (for those who are *cough* allergic) is limited to the contents of the soup mix packet. And you don't have to do much but stir it occasionally, meaning you can be very productive while cooking.
Mmm... tasty.
1 package Manischewitz Vegetable Soup Mix - the kind with a little spice package inside the main package.
Hold on! I thought we were making actual soup? This is a mix! I hear you cry. Hold your horses. Using mixes as a starting point and adding many and varied ingredients to make them awesome is a time honored tradition. Heck, there's at least one cookbook about doctoring cake mixes to make them delicious instead of merely edible. But I digress.
1/4 cup wild rice
1/4 cup steel cut oats
1/4 cup brown rice
1/4 cup lentils
1/4 cup whole kasha
Bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Add the main part of the soup mix (not the spice package) and all of the grains listed above to the water. Turn the heat down low and cover the pot tightly. Cook for 2 hours. Stir occasionally, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pot because it does stick to the bottom. At the 1:45 mark, add the spice package. Salt & pepper to taste. The resulting soup will be very thick and tasty.
If you want to make it even thicker, use chicken or vegetable broth instead of water. I see no reason that you couldn't add carrots, celery or pearl onions, but then it would be REALLY thick.
One plus to this recipe is that even the smallest package of the respective grains available in stores will yield many, many pots of this soup. It's totally vegetarian friendly, and the amount of onion in it (for those who are *cough* allergic) is limited to the contents of the soup mix packet. And you don't have to do much but stir it occasionally, meaning you can be very productive while cooking.
Mmm... tasty.