coconut lentil soup

and so finals begin: the staying up till 5am, the review sessions periodically punctuated by coffee zaps, waking up in the middle of the night to realize you've been drafting an essay outline in your sleep.

i'm a bit preoccupied though, planning something big. today i filed my absence of leave form (!) with the college registrar (!!). typing these words feels strangely liberating: i will not be at reed next semester, or even in portland, for that matter. i'm going back home to live in new york with my parents for a few months, and hopefully work an internship with my favorite food magazine (!!!) which will remain nameless because i haven't actually gotten it yet (!). and then, if all goes according to plan, i'll wwoof in ireland (!!) for a few weeks.

so, compounded with my early-onset i'm-not-going-to-be-here-next-semester senioritis and my sudden penchant for exclamation points, i've also got a zillion things to do: pack up my stuff, find a house for the summer, move my subletter in, give resumés to portland places that i might want to work over the summer, file my change of address all over the place, work out my health insurance, plan summer classes, draft a list of all the books i'm going to read while i'm out of school, study for (and take) my qual, have an existential crisis, find myself, and find a new pair of winter boots while i'm at it.

oh, and i have to finish all my finals. right. speaking of which, if anyone has any recommendations for good anthemic study albums, i'm all ears. i've been listening to the whines' "hell to play" on repeat for the past week, but don't want to beat it to death. and while i'm making requests, if santa and/or any prospective secret admirers that i don't know about are reading, i want this, this, and/or this for christmas.
i'm currently holed up in the library listening to the rain pounding on the glass roof, blogging in an attempt to clear up a nasty case of writer's block. i'm two pages into my first serious attempt at writing about postmodernism, which is making me feel both massively underqualified and slightly wanky. i have eaten no fewer than seven clementines today. with the help of my lit theory class, tonight i plowed through the season's first batch of peppermint bark. it must be december.

on a slightly more healthful note, remember when i was jonesing around for good finals food? there's a soup that i want to tell you about that embodies all of that and then some. it comes from once upon a tart, an eponymous cookbook by the folks from the new york bakeshop (how appropriate) of the same name. it's not winning any beauty contests ('tis the season for ugly duckling comfort food, after all), but it's delicious: warm flavors suspended in floral, rich coconut milk make for a perfumed broth that silkily shellacks mouthfuls of nutritionally dense, toothsome green lentils.
yes, lentils, again. i've also been loving a (perhaps americanized) indian spice palette recently, so this hit all the right chords for me. i tweaked it in a few ways, though, because i can never leave well enough alone: i upped the spices, slightly reduced the butter, defussed it by skipping a butter clarification, and puréed some of the soup for a broth with more body. i also threw in a cup of cooked brown rice towards the end, making it a pretty solid one-bowl meal, but this is completely optional. also, i'm tagging this as vegan because it would be totally fine to substitute olive oil for butter; your call. i would also encourage you to play around with the spices, tasting as you cook. if you feel like your soup could use a smattering of ginger, a hit of fennel seed, some fenugreek or five-spice powder, don't be shy.

green lentil soup with coconut milk & warm spices
adapted from once upon a tart via orangette
serves 5

• 3 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1 ½ tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 6 cups vegetable stock, preferably homemade
• 1 ½ cups french green lentils, picked over for stones and other debris (i used regular green lentils)
• ¼ cup uncooked rice of your choosing: i used brown, but jasmine, basmati, or plain white would all work (optional)
• 1 ¼ cups coconut milk
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• cayenne pepper, to taste

in a soup pot or dutch oven, warm the butter over medium high heat. add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is translucent. turn the heat down to medium, and add the next nine ingredients. cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is lightly browned and very soft.

add the stock, lentils, and rice if using. bring to a simmer and cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the lentils are soft and tender and the rice is cooked.

add the coconut milk, and stir well. cook for about 15 minutes to blend the flavors. taste and adjust the salt and spices as necessary. (i felt my broth was a bit thin at this point so i puréed about a cup and a half of it and then stirred it back into the pot, which thickened it up perfectly, but this might not be necessary for you. keep in mind it'll thicken up as it cools.) serve hot.

note: this soup improves with time. it’s great on the first day, but it’s even better on the second.