Because… you know… rivets… riveting…? Oh, nevermind.
The soup was delicious. And I made naan! Recipes after the jump, if you care. If you don’t care, enjoy your rivets. I Googled them just for you.
Crock Pot Moong Dal Soup That I Half Stole, Half Invented
Rinse 3 cups moong dal (the little yellow lentils) and soak then in hot water for half an hour. Rinse again, then put them in the crock pot with a bay leaf, 32 oz. (one box) vegetable stock, and a cup of water. Cook on high for an hour, skimming off any foam.
Add: one 14 oz. can fire-roasted tomatoes (juice and all), one finely minced sweet onion, 2-3 chopped carrots, 2-3 chopped celery stalks (I was out of celery and had to just use celery seed, but real celery would’ve been better). Turn the heat down to low if you want to cook all day, or leave it on high if you only have a few hours. Basically, cook until the lentils disintegrate and the soup is thick. Once that happens, fish out the bay leaf and move on to the next step.
In a small frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add: 1-2 tablespoons fresh ginger (I was out—surprise!—and used a heaping teaspoon of powder; again, fresh would’ve been better), 2 teaspoons cumin, 2 teaspoons coriander, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, some fresh ground black pepper, a teaspoon of salt, and a couple of pinches of cayenne. Stir and heat the spice/oil mixture until bubbling (but do not burn!), then add a ladle of the dal to the spice mixture, stir, and transfer it all back to the crock.
Turn the heat up to high (if it wasn’t on high already) and add a couple of cups of chopped spinach and the juice of a lemon. Stir until the spinach is wilted. Serve with naan!
Half-assed Easy Naan Recipe
Add a packet of yeast to a cup of warm water in a large bowl. Leave 15 minutes or until the mixture bubbles. Add 2 cups bread flour, 2/3 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 2 tablespoons of plain yogurt. Mix first with a spoon, then knead by hand. Mixture should become smooth and tacky but not unbearably sticky—add more flour if it keeps sticking to everything. Oil bowl and put the dough back in; cover with plastic wrap and set the bowl inside another bowl of hot water to speed rising. If you do that water trick, it’s ready to go in 30 minutes. Punch down, pull off large golf-ball-sized balls and roll out very thin. Cook in a frying pan on medium-low heat with a little oil or butter (really you should use ghee, which is clarified butter, but who has time for that?), giving each side about 45 seconds. They will puff up and your family will be impressed.
Eat with your moong dal, unless you don’t eat gluten, in which case just enjoy your moong dal while wistfully staring at your beautiful naan and saying things like, “You are SO LUCKY to have a mother who loves you SO MUCH that she makes you naan from scratch when she can’t even eat any.”
Bonus: Even the kid who claims not to like soup will mop it up with the naan because NAAN IS DELICIOUS.
Oh yes! I will make this soon (ish!). You are very very pretty Mir! PS…can you remind me in 2 months that the pictures of the rivets on my recipe board on pinterest is actually this recipe? My brain..it just doesn’t work so well after kids. ;)
The only thing you could possibly do to improve that naan recipe is to throw in some chopped fresh garlic. Garlic naan is a tasty alternative to the regular version, plus it helps repel vampires. Good Gawd, Mir… now I have a naan jones working!
If it helps, I giggled about the rivet picture.
oh, sweet, I bet I could make that with fake yogurt. Thanks!
Both recipes sound great!
Thank you! I’m jonesin’ for them both now. *droooool*
Yum. Added to my recipe list! Thanks!
If only I could muster any motivation to try and cook.
Have you tried Better Batter flour? It works cup for cup like regular flour but it completely gluten free. I buy it in 20 lb bags and bake with that. I’m still learning how to use it best (it is still GF flour, after all), but I think it might work with the naan here.
Ooh, naan. I’d get major brownie points in house if I pulled that off. Do they hold at all after frying?
I, too, am impressed that your naan puffed up. Shall I dare try to make it?
However, please note that the first thing that came to mind while reading was that I have meringue pie yogurt…what would meringue pie naan taste like?
would this work with plain old brown lentils? we all been wanting something lentil’y
Did anyone else read those fantastic Elizabeth Enright books? The Melendy’s? There’s a wonderful scene where Mona (the eldest) has become enamored with cooking and decides memorizing recipes is easier than writing them down. She’s the actress of the family and offers to recite a neighbor’s cake recipe with appropriate dramatic emphasis. I remember something about her raising her eyebrows with Lady Macbeth’s mad expression and declaiming ‘and two cups of… RAISINS!!’
I have no idea why this post reminded me of that. I’m sure it is utterly coincidental.
You had me so excited about the possibility of gluten free naan, oh well. You are a much better Mom than I am, I don’t bake gluten-filled goodies unless it’s something that I wouldn’t want to eat anyway. My kids don’t realize that their birthday cakes are always gluten free!
That naan sounds delicious! If it becomes a staple at your house, nature-granola type stores usually carry jars of ghee.
That naan recipe = double-plus delicious! I made it tonight and now I am the family hero!