Crockpot Dal, Exotic Spicy Veggie Variation

I've been trying to work more beans and lentils into our diet.  They are full of fiber, provide some great vegetarian protein, and frankly they are just better for us than a fatty cut of meat would be.

We're trying to make better choices, and this is one of them.

Yesterday was Day 2 of the big school furniture move, so I put a pot of curried yellow split pea dal on in my crockpot.  The thought was that it would cook for the day and, when I got home, the house would be filled with the luscious scent of exotic spices and soothingly warm soup.

And that it would cook itself which was a premium bonus for yesterday, given how exhausted I was at the end of the day.

I played around with my usual crockpot dal recipe, and amped up the spices and the veggies a bit, and it was wonderful -- fragrant, chock full of healthy veggies, and just what I wanted for dinner after a long, hard day yesterday.

What I did was this:


I popped in a 1 lb. bag of yellow split peas (because that's what I had on hand, but you could use red lentils or other dal-friendly pulses), rinsed and picked over to make certain no rocks or twigs were in there.

I added the following to the crockpot along with it, basically cleaning out a lot of my produce bin in the refrigerator with what I had on hand that would work well in the soup.  All of this got chopped small in the food processor:

2  small yellow onions
1 1/2 c. chopped carrots
2 stalks celery
1 1/2 c. shredded cabbage
1 med. zucchini
3 cloves garlic
1 inch knob peeled, fresh ginger

To all of this, I added:

7 c. water
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
3 chicken boullion cubes (you could absolutely use veggie here if you have them and if that's important to you, I just had chicken on hand and I was in a hurry)
1 Tbsp. Penzey's hot curry powder
1 Tbsp. Penzey's sweet curry powder
2 bay leaves
2 sticks cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. ground cumin

Stirred the whole thing up, and left it to cook for 10 hours on LOW.   I was using my really big crockpot, but you could easily adjust the amount of veggies and/or liquid for what size you have -- the ingredients as written make a large quantity of soup.

I had pre-chopped the veggies the night before, and had them in a container in the fridge that I just dumped into the crockpot the next morning.  Boy was that handy.  I used that trick a lot when I was working full time, as it saves precious morning coffee sipping time and you don't have to get your hands all smelly on the way out the door, which is a huge bonus if you have to appear in front of a jury and you don't want to reek of onion and garlic.

When I walked in the door, I opened the lid, stirred the soup, added a bit more water, and put the lid back on to let it simmer another hour or so.

All I had to do to eat was heat up some garlic cilantro naan that I had purchased at the store, and chop some fresh cilantro to mix into our bowls to serve the soup.

The recipe makes a ton of soup, but it freezes well.  I popped all our leftovers in the fridge last night before I stumbled up to bed, and will freeze some in portions for a day when warm, nourishing and exotic sounds just about right for dinner again.  Tonight, we have leftovers with more naan, and I could not be happier -- because it always seems to taste even better the second day.

UPDATE:  Just prepped my chilled soup leftovers:  I got two full quarts of soup in the freezer, which I pureed before popping into the containers (I find this is better as a puree, and I just add a can of lentil soup and some extra curry powder when I reheat it on the back end for texture and flavor.).  Plus, we have a quart and a half to eat over the next two days with naan, and I get a cooking break for dinner tonight and at least a lunch, too.  Woo hoo!

(Lovely photo of lentils at a market in Kathmandu via Dey.  Can't you just smell spices in the air looking at this?)