Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it’s nice to warm up on winter nights with a light, simple soup. It’s great to have the ample servings of turkey and dressing, ham, pies, cookies and candies during this season, but in between, take a break. It’s like watching a holiday movie one day with a cup of mulled cider because you’re tired of the holiday shopping. And soup is a natural for cold weather, of course.

Collard greens are best from the garden, especially picked while young, but can often be found at the grocery store. If you can’t, it is fine to use spinach, and you might prefer to use spinach if you like a subtler taste. Paired with good old standbys potatoes and carrots, and just a little seasoning, this soup turns out to have a surprisingly deep flavor. If you’re vegetarian you can use vegetable stock instead. Collard greens are usually cooked with bacon or pork because the strong salty flavor helps the greens taste like meat. But I like to taste the greens in the forefront, rather than just have greens that taste like bacon. (Sorry, all of you who are part of the “bacon makes everything better” movement.)

Warm, easy soup lifts your spirits, helps you reflect on the true meaning of this season, and assists you in seeing past the endless gray days to see the beauty of a cold, sleeping world. It’s a world that is resting, building its energy to produce a colorful array of produce come spring and summer.

 

Greens, Potato and Carrot Soup 

1 pound collard greens
4 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped
½ cup chicken stock plus three cups chicken stock
1 cup chopped leeks (white part only)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teas. celery seed
1 teas. dill weed
Salt and pepper 

Thoroughly wash collard greens, then cut off stems and larger rib pieces. Discard stems and ribs. Tear greens into bite-sized pieces. Set aside. In a large pan, boil 4 cups of water, then add potatoes and carrots and boil for 15 minutes, or until soft. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, place half cup of chicken stock, leeks, garlic, celery seed, dill weed, and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain potatoes and carrots. Add saucepan contents to potatoes and carrots, then add three cups chicken stock. Simmer, adding collard greens and cooking them in the soup for about two minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately. Can also puree this soup before serving.

 

For some time now, I’ve been saying that if I’m going to eat meat, I ought to be able to look an animal in the eye and be OK with its death for my dinner, or I should become a vegetarian.

I hadn’t had the opportunity to test this premise, though, until my friend Karen, owner of Three Fates Farm, called to say she was sending some of her lambs to slaughter and asked if we wanted one. I jumped at the opportunity.

I didn’t meet the exact lamb I’d be eating, but I had visited all the lambs when they were just days and weeks old, adorably following their mothers around the pasture, and I felt that the criteria of looking my dinner in the eye was satisfied.

 

The lamb would be ready in a week or so, available at a local slaughterhouse, where it would all be neatly packaged and labeled and ready for our pickup. We bought a small freezer in anticipation of our homegrown meat. Finally one Saturday it was ready.

I was ushered around the counter of the shop, which was doing a brisk business with a mostly Mexican clientele. I wondered why I hadn’t been here before and vowed to come back and explore. I followed a butcher to a back room, where I made small talk with the owner, a smiling gray-haired man with a Greek accent, while the butcher searched for my box of lamb.

“I’ve seen better lamb than yours,” the owner said. What makes it better? I asked. “The feed,” he replied. I explained that the lamb I was buying was raised for its wool, not its meat, but given its rare breed standing, certain criteria concerning their markings and fleece quality have to be met. For various reasons some don’t make the cut, and those are the lambs that get butchered.

But I know the grass they’ve grazed on, been in the barn where they feed, sleep, and were born. I know they were well-cared for and healthy, and that is enough for me. But not, apparently, for the slaughterhouse owner. He motioned me to follow him into a room-size cooler.

“Now this is good lamb,” he said, heartily patting one of the numerous carcasses hanging in rows. The room was full of slaughtered pigs and lambs. My first thought? Those are some nice-looking pigs.

I have no idea why I thought that. I don’t know a good pig from a bad pig, but something about the way them was appealing. My next thought was maybe I could be a farmer after all. I was intrigued by the experience, not freaked out by the amount of animal flesh surrounding me. I was fascinated by it all and asked the owner questions about his livelihood and operations. Next, I thought, I really should witness a slaughter, to make sure I really am OK with this death-for-life business.

I don’t expect to like it; I would hope on some level it would be disturbing. But I want to be OK with it, or not eat meat.

When my box of lamb was finally located (“It was under a bunch of goats heads,” the butcher said), I drove home and unpacked it, transferring the wrapped parcels to the new freezer.

Karen had warned me that though she didn’t ask for it, the head was included. Indeed, there was a package with “Lamb HEAD” written in black Sharpie on butcher paper. Well, now’s my chance to truly look my dinner in the eye, I thought. So I did. 

Unwrapping the skinned head, it took me a moment to get oriented. Ah yes, there’s the mouth, the tongue slightly protruding and some teeth visible. I studied it for awhile, took a photo, wrapped it back up and took it to the garbage can in the garage, where it would stay frozen until pickup day.

It felt wasteful, but I didn’t know what else to do with it, except perhaps throw it out in the woods the coyotes, but given the cats and dogs that live with us and our neighbors, it didn’t seem wise to lure hungry coyotes closer to our homes.

Last week I defrosted two shoulders and made a delicious lamb dish seasoned with cinnamon, cardamom, turmeric, and cumin and served with perfumed rice—sautéed onions, raisins, and dates layered with lentils and basmati rice and seasoned with the same spices (sans the cumin).

The slaughterhouse owner may have seen better lamb, but this was as tender and delicious as any I’ve ever had, made all the sweeter by knowing that its brief life was a good and humane one, provided by caring, animal-loving friends, on a farm just 10 miles from my home.

I had looked my dinner in the eye—sort of—and I was OK with it. More than OK with it. I didn't exactly feel good about it, but I didn't feel bad about it either. I felt grateful, gratified, humbled, and, at that moment, rather full.

 

The Recipes 

Lamb 

Two lamb shoulders, meat cut off bones and into 1-inch pieces (I had 3 lbs of lamb after trimming)
3 cups sliced onions
2-3 tbs olive oil
3 tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp cardamom
¾ tsp turmeric
¾ tsp cumin
2 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Water

Sauté onions in olive oil over medium-high heat until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Add the lamb; season with salt, pepper, and spices and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add enough water to barely cover the meat—I used 4 cups. Cover and simmer for 2 ½ to 3 hours, until meat is very tender. I removed the lid after one hour to reduce the liquid to a thickened sauce. Serve with perfumed rice recipe.

Perfumed Rice

3 cups white basmati rice
1 ½ cups lentils
1 cup sliced onion
1 cup raisins
1 cup pitted and chopped dates
1 stick butter
2 tbs yogurt
2 tbs olive oil
Salt
Spices (mixed together): ½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp cardamom, ¼ tsp turmeric

Wash rice vigorously in several changes of water and soak for 2 hours in 8 cups of water with 2 tbs salt.

In a saucepan, mix the lentils with 3 cups of water and ½ tsp salt. Bring to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes, and drain.

In a frying pan, sauté onions in 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat until soft and golden. Stir in the raisins and dates, cook for 2 more minutes, and set aside.

Parboil the rice by bringing 2 quarts of water and 2 tablespoons of salt to a boil in a 4-quart pot (nonstick is recommended), adding the presoaked rice and boiling for 3-5 minutes, stirring every so often, until the grains lose their brittle core but are still quite firm. Drain the rice and rinse it in several cups of warm water.

In the same pot, melt the stick of butter. Pour half into a small bowl and set aside. Take 2 cups of the cooked rice, mix it in a bowl with the yogurt, and spread it on the bottom of the pot over the butter. Sprinkle a layer of the lentils on the rice, then a layer of raisins, dates, and onions, then another layer of rice. Sprinkle spice mixture in between layers.

Continue until all ingredients are used up, reducing the diameter of each layer so that the ingredients taper to a pyramid in the pot.

Cover and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes to form a crust on the bottom of the rice.

Uncover, pour reserved melted butter over the rice, put a dishtowel over the pot, cover it again, and cook over low heat for 50 minutes. (To prevent the dishtowel from catching fire, I gathered the ends and used a clothespin to secure them to the lid handle.)

Remove from heat and leave covered; place on cold wet dishtowel (to help loosen crust) for 5 minutes.

Uncover and transfer the contents to a serving platter or large bowl, mounding the rice and lentils in the center and spooning the lamb around it.

Remove the rice crust with a spatula and serve on a separate plate. (Mine pretty much crumbled, so I just added it to the rest of the rice.)

 

NOTES:

This recipe is from The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten, with some slight modifications (I tripled the amount of lamb, for example.) His purpose with this recipe was to cook a delicious meal for not a lot of money, which is why he put the emphasis on the rice and lentils, with the lamb as more of an accent (he uses just 1 lb of lamb shoulder). I wanted more lamb and, really, could do with less rice and lentils.

If I were to make this again—and the flavors are so yummy, I’m sure I will—I would perhaps eliminate the lentils altogether (the two together are very filling) and I would double the amount of onions, raisins, and dates, because they are so very delicious. I’m also not sure of the purpose of the rice soaking and repeated rinsing; I might eliminate all of that and see what happens.

Enjoy!

How did ancient peoples stay healthy without today's modern medicines? One way was to eat good food. One of the best is quinoa, pronounced KEEN-wa. This food was a staple in the Incan civilization, even referred to as "the mother of all grains." Quinoa resurfaced commercially about 20 years ago and is now showing up in chain grocery stores.

Easy to make. Low fat. Low sodium. Easy to digest. Gluten free. Very high protein, enough that the National Academy of Sciences called it "one of the best sources of protein in the vegetable kingdom." All this, and it tastes great. It has a delicious nutty flavor and serves as a great alternative to rice and couscous. Some people refer to it as a "grain" but it's not a grain. It's actually a seed.

It is so versatile, it is easy to cook with. Without using a recipe, you can make quinoa as directed on the box. Then you can saute or prepare vegetables and spices, and mix it all together. For this recipe I decided to add flavorful green pepper and seasonings. It's one of those simple recipes that tastes like it was incredibly complicated.

 

Green Pepper Quinoa

• 1 cup quinoa (see note below)
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 1 medium green pepper, diced
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried mustard (optional)

Note: This recipe calls for boxed, commercially-available quinoa, not unwashed quinoa.

Put quinoa and chicken stock in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmering, cover, and cook till stock is absorbed, about 15-20 minutes. (With quinoa, the grain appears soft and in red quinoa, the "germ ring" which is white, will become visible after cooked). If stock is not yet absorbed, turn off heat and let set for a few more minutes. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt butter. Add onion and pepper and cook on medium for 5-7 minutes. Halfway through the sauteing time, add Worcestershire, black pepper, cumin, paprika, and dried mustard, and stir. When sauteing is done, add this to the quinoa, stir, and serve.

Quinoa is usually tan-colored. This is a red variety called pasankalla from Bolivia that was recently revived in Bolivia. I found it as Ancient Harvest brand at Whole Foods. Quinoa also comes in Bob's Red Mill, Arrowhead Mills, Eden Foods, and Trader Joe's brands.

If you want to get quinoa that is not from a box at the grocery store, which is usually my preferred way, know that this is one time you might want to cave in to convenience. Quinoa that hasn't been prewashed has a substance on its outside that has to be removed with rigorous cleaning.

Here's what is involved: several years ago Gourmet magazine had a recipe with these instructions: Wash quinoa in at least 5 changes of water, rubbing grains and letting them settle before pouring off water, until water runs clear. Drain in a large sieve. Add quinoa to a saucepan of boiling salted water and cook 10 minutes. Drain in sieve and rinse under cold water. Set sieve over a saucepan with 1 1/2 inches boiling water (sieve should not touch water) and steam quinoa, covered with a kitchen towel and lid, until fluffy and dry. 

That's how the ancient Incans had to prepare it. Like me, they probably said, "Good grief!"