The news editor at the Greenfield Recorder, Shelby Ashline, suggested that I attend a Zoom session titled “Cooking Soups for Health and Happiness” last week. I am a big fan of soup, as well as of health and happiness, so I dialed in and ended up being happy that I did. January is, after all, National Soup Month.
Offered by the Dunbarton (N.H.) Public Library, the class was taught by Leslie Cerier of Shutesbury. Known as the Organic Gourmet, Cerier is a chef, cookbook author, motivational speaker and cooking teacher.
She specializes in farm-to-table, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free dishes, and promises that her food will be “all about the yum.”
Cerier called her class “a love fest for soup.” The lentil-based soup she prepared during the hour-long session on Zoom certainly looked yummy; alas, she couldn’t share it with viewers. It also looked colorful and healthy.
In addition to walking us through her soup recipe, and making it look remarkably easy, she demonstrated chopping techniques and fielded questions about everything from storing lentils to the best pots to use for soup.
In general, Cerier advocated using the freshest possible ingredients available. One attendee asked whether she could use beans that had been sitting in the larder for a while in the soup. The teacher suggested, “If you can’t remember when you bought those lentils, they’re probably too old.”
She also offered general guidelines beyond the particular soup she was making, suggesting that home cooks could give their creations a little Asian flavor with garlic, cilantro and perhaps a little Cayenne pepper.
Italian lovers could start their soup by sautéing onions and garlic in oil and later throwing in some herbs like basil, oregano and thyme. And so forth.
Cerier noted that she loves to vary her soup flavors. “It just depends on what I’m in the mood for,” she smiled.
She explained that in a lentil soup like the one she was making, it is often useful to hold off on adding salt and garlic until late in the cooking process. Adding the salt too early can inhibit the lentils from softening, she elaborated, and the garlic is most flavorful and healthful added late in the cooking process.
These rules aren’t hard and fast; you’ll note that the garlic is added early in the recipe she gave me, which appears below. The rules are useful to have at one’s fingertips, however. Interestingly, Cerier added, onion is best medicinally when added early in the cooking process and allowed to cook for a while.
In fact, not having hard and fast rules — other than using the freshest, most organic ingredients available — seems to be Cerier’s most hard and fast rule. She played with the recipe she was making even as she prepared it in front of the Zoom camera.
“You don’t write ‘Going Wild in the Kitchen’ if you just stick to the recipe,” she laughed, referring to the title of one of her cookbooks.
Cerier expressed a wish that she could serve some of her soup to the class. Ordinarily, she teaches classes in person, but we are not in ordinary times. Even without a bowl of soup, the 25 or so people watching on Zoom all expressed appreciation for the class and for Cerier’s skill and grace in the kitchen.
She invites the public to sign up to be on her mailing list and to attend upcoming workshops. Information for doing either of those things (plus much more) may be found on her website, lesliecerier.com.
Meanwhile, here is one of Cerier’s soups to brighten up National Soup Month.
Excerpted from “Going Wild in the Kitchen” (2005) Copyright Leslie Cerier, all rights reserved.
Cerier states that this soup is easily adapted according to what is in season.
“You can use fresh tomatoes, summer squash, spinach and eggplant in the summer; canned tomatoes, carrots, yams or delicata squash in fall and winter,” she told me. “I keep hearing from folks that they love this soup.”
Ingredients:
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
2 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons grated ginger
1 tablespoon seeded and coarsely chopped cayenne pepper
2 garlic cloves, finely minced or pressed
3-inch-piece dulse, or 1 tablespoon dulse flakes (optional)
1 cup coarsely chopped onions
10 cups bite-size cauliflower florets
3½ cups coarsely chopped plum tomatoes
1 14-ounce can of coconut milk
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves (optional)
Place the lentils, water, cinnamon stick, ginger, cayenne pepper, garlic and dulse (if you’re using it) in a 6-quart stockpot. Bring the ingredients to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the lentils melt and become yellow.
Add the onion, cauliflower, tomatoes and coconut milk, and continue to simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the cauliflower is soft. Add the salt.
Adjust the seasonings, if desired. Ladle the hot soup into bowls. Garnish with cilantro, if desired. Serves six to eight.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy,” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.