Joy's ginger and lentil soup

This meal really hit the spot during this chilly, gray, yet snowless winter we've been having.



And it's a good thing, too, because this recipe makes a whole heap of soup.



I followed Joy's recipe, and her serving suggestions. I ate this soup with pearl couscous and cheddar on top.

Joy's creamy garlic soup with roasted potatoes

I remember when I first discovered that you can just eat garlic.

It was in college.  (I learned a lot of things in college.)  My friend Peter gathered a few friends together and took us to a tapas restaurant in Old Pasadena.  One of the tapas was roasted garlic with crostini.  It was so simple.  So brilliant.  Why hadn't I thought of this myself?!  Until then, garlic had been a spice, one thinly sliced clove here, a few crushed there.  It seemed so indulgent to just eat it, straight up, by the head.

I felt the same way when I discovered garlic soup.

And then there are the potatoes.  Have I mentioned my obsession with the purple ones?  I'm convinced they're better for you than the garden variety.  (To validate my claim, I did a little googling, and it seems they actually are.)



I realize she's a baker, but in my mind, Joy's savory meals are where it's at.  At least until I'm ready for dessert.

Joy's spinach salad with blood orange, feta, and avocado

I am such a boring salad-maker, and sometimes I forget how amazing salad can be with just a little effort.  When I saw this beautiful salad on Joy the Baker, I wanted to eat it immediately.  A quick stop at the grocery store, and we were able to find a blood orange and (more surprisingly) ripe avocados.  Phil put everything together in just a few minutes.



I loved every bit of this salad!  The smooth avocado, the salty cheese, and the acidic oranges.  To me, each bite with blood orange was like a burst of vinaigrette.  But I noticed Phil quickly ate all of the oranges and then continued with the rest of the salad together.  He preferred the oranges on their own, but said he still liked the salad overall.  For me, the unsung hero of the salad was the sunflower seeds.  I know, right?  An ingredient I almost omitted or substituted turned out to add so much texture and toasty flavor.  But really, this salad has an ensemble cast of amazing food, and together they can do no wrong.  For the rest of the week, I brought versions of this salad to work as lunch, substituting a clementine for the blood orange.

We ate the salad with a demi baguette and olive oil.  We go through olive oil like crazy in this household, and I had picked up a $20 bottle on sale a few days earlier.  Inspired by this story I heard on public radio, I wanted to do a taste test between the $20 bottle and our usual $7 store brand.  (I love taste tests like nobody's business.)  I wrote the identity of the oil on the bottom of the little bowl and mixed them up so neither of us knew which was which.



The results of the test were interesting: we could both tell a difference between the two oils, but our conclusions about which was the expensive oil was different!  To me, one of the oils was more fruity and flavorful, and fresh tasting, and I called that one the $20 bottle.  To Phil, that same oil tasted grassy and less like olives, and he thought it was the store brand.  In the big reveal, I was correct about which oil was which (yea!), but we also decided that we didn't prefer either one much more than the other, especially for the price difference.

Joy's pesto and Deb's sorbet (but boozier)

I've become obsessed with our food processor.  Phil's parents bought a new food processor for themselves, and gifted their older machine to us.  Let me say, it barely qualifies as a small kitchen appliance.  With its multiple blades, bowls, its own caboodle-type storage case, and enormous base with three big buttons, it is a beast.  But when I saw with what ease it made the best version of Joy's spinach and cashew pesto, I wondered where it had been all my life.
I ate it with a delicously garlicky hasselback potato, as Joy suggests, and Phil had his with pasta.  (And I had the leftovers for both lunch and dinner the next day.)

Since the beast was here to stay, I typed "food processor" into the search bar on smitten kitchen, and drooled over the possibilities.  We landed on an easy recipe for sorbet, and then bastardized it just a little bit (but in a way I hope Deb would approve of).

Boozy Strawberry Mango Sorbet
Adapted from smitten kitchen and the cuisinart recipe booklet that came with the food processor

1 generous cup frozen strawberries
1 generous cup frozen mango
1/3 cup limoncello
1/3 cup simple syrup (if you like it sweet; omit this if you like it tart)
Juice from half a lemon

Puree all of the ingredients in a food processor.  Taste, and add more lemon juice if you think it needs it.  Pour puree into a ziploc freezer bag and freeze until firm.  The alcohol prevents it from freezing too hard.  Enjoy like it's summer, even though it's 20º outside.  Makes two servings.