Soupy Soup Soupyness

            I freakin’ adore “Love Actually”. Seriously, this movie is the best and one of my Christmas favorites. It’s unapologetically sappy (what my sister refers to as “Velveeta”) and legitimately hilarious. Also, full of my favorite British actors! In honor of the holiday season, the first “wintry mix” of the season, and my need of comfort food during finals, I decided to make soup and bread and watch “Love Actually”.

Lumpy McLumperson

            I returned to the world of bread making to bake focaccia, which is one of those food words that restaurants use to sound fancy (see aioli). It’s really just your basic bread recipe, but with rosemary and olive oil. It would be excellent for a Caprese sandwich because it has kind of a Mediterranean vibe. I kind of struggled with this recipe because I couldn’t get all of the flour to incorporate so it never became really sticky and stretchy like bread dough is supposed to. But I did my best. The final product was kind of an amorphous blob. But it tasted absolutely delicious. The crust was the perfect level of crustiness and the insides stayed chewy and warm.

All of the lentils. 

            The soup was also quite good. It is definitely lentil soup; 3 cups of lentils is a LOT. I believe the correct unit of measurement is a “crap ton”. The final soup is very thick and densely packed with lentils. I used about 2 cups of broth because that’s how much I had left over and 5 cups of water. This added flavor, but I’m not really sure if I liked it. I’ll try again another time with only water. In addition to the lentils, you add carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. You don’t have to sauté any of the vegetables, which means less dishes! Hooray! You do have to “seed” the tomatoes which involves dunking them in boiling water, peeling the skins off, and squeezing the seeds out. I don’t know why this is necessary and what it actually does to the flavor. Mostly I just found it irritating.

If you understand this picture, let's be best friends. 

            There are also some optional herbs that you can add (in addition to cracked black pepper). I might’ve slightly overdone it on the thyme and hence exaggerated the odd flavor. But it wasn’t bad.

            The two together were quite yummy; but when isn’t bread and soup equal to absolute perfection. Following with my holiday theme, I decided to venture into the world of eggnog. Over Thanksgiving, I was trying to explain eggnog to my younger sister. We decided that it was essentially egg milk, which doesn’t sound at all appetizing. I realized that I’d never actually tried eggnog, and so I wanted to give it a shot. I bought soy eggnog (again, yay for latent lactose intolerance!) and fireball cinnamon whisky. According to the Internet you can serve it hot or cold, so I drank it over ice. It was really good! Way more delicious than "egg milk". Definitely quite festive and Christmassy!

I am now over 10% done with this project! I’ve got some more Christmas recipes planned, so stay tuned!