CTN: Gingery Split-Pea Soup

I honestly can't remember when I made this soup. I think it was on a Saturday. I do remember that I tried to buy the ingredients at the Farmer's Market, but couldn't find carrots or celery at any of the booths. I did buy a ginormous leek, which you can see dominating the picture below. Which is the only picture I took, because I got busy making my Rugelach for Tuesdays with Dorie.

I was trying to cram it all in because Pete and I were leaving for Montana on February 27 to go to Yellowstone. So instead of pictures of the soup, I am including my terrible photos of Yellowstone. Pete took beautiful photos, but I don't have access to his card.

I started the soup by trying to crush the coriander seed with the back of a knife as Melissa suggested. What happened is that the seeds would squish out from underneath the knife and end up all over the floor. From the perspective of somebody very small on the floor, the seeds might have looked like bison on the roadway.

So I had to crush the seeds one by one. That was a huge pain in the butt. It took me about 15 minutes to crush the seeds. The whole time I was thinking that it would only take me about 30 seconds to go get my mortar and pestle. But I was too lazy. I guess I was conserving my energy for cross-country skiing.

I put the coriander into the pan, but didn't turn it on because I didn't want the coriander to burn while I was chopping the huge batch of vegetables. I diced all those carrots, leeks (I used one leek and no onion--which was perfect in my opinion), celery, and garlic. And I grated a pretty large chunk of ginger. When I started heating the coriander, I told the other people in the house to tell me when it was fragrant. It smelled so good. When I added the chopped vegetables, I was told that the house went from smelling good to smelling like onions. I take it that is a bad thing. Sort of like a wolf constructing her den on the south side of a slope. Not a good place to raise puppies.

I threw in the lentils and the huge amount of broth and water (didn't make homemade broth this time), and brought the pan up to the boil. The steam smelled fantastic. Unlike the steam you can see below, which smelled like sulfur.

I thought the soup was delicious. I let it slide down my throat just like the water behind a frozen waterfall. I ate a huge bowl of it. I loved the spicy-citrusy taste of the coriander. Sam, who doesn't like very many things that I make, ate two huge bowls of the soup. I brought a large container of it to Natalie, who was recovering from a pretty nasty bacterial infection, and she loved it too. I would definitely make this soup again--but never with split peas. The red lentils were perfect.

Just like Yellowstone in the winter.