Gwen Kenneally, Chef/Director of the Edible School Project shows you how to make a. spicy red lentil soup. Easy,healthy and tasty
Spicy Red Lentil Soup by Gwen Kenneally author The Plantastic Cookbook
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons curry powder
¼ cup tomato paste
2 (15-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
6 cups vegetable stock
½ cup red lentils
What To Do
Heat oil in large pan, add onions and
garlic, and cook over medium heat,
stirring, until onions are soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook, uncovered, about 20 minutes or until lentils are
tender. Serves 6 to 8.
Have onion and garlic here hi everybody I’m Mark Allen welcome to Mark Allen Cooks we have a great show for you today we’re going to show you how to make a spicy lentil soup in literally minutes and let it simmer on your stove I’m really excited about this um I have to
Say uh we’ve been off for a couple weeks and U don’t don’t get the flu it’s a terrible one all right uh this is Mark Allen Cooks we’ll be back with our guest in just a couple Moments uh hi uh and Welcome to our show we’re going to make a vegan uh uh dish today that should take I guess work time maybe 15 15 minutes uh we’re going to go to Los Angeles we’re going to bring in our brand new friend uh uh Gwen canel
She is a chef and director of the edible schoolyard at lch larchmount school in Los Angeles Gwen welcome to Mark Allen Cooks hello Mark how are you today I’m awesome today well that’s good uh we usually start with a toe of some kind of adult beverage and frankly you
Remembered but I didn’t so I grabbed something out of my refrigerator and I think we should toast let’s toast to um uh no more hunger and peace in the world how does that sound amen okay skull SK and I’m I’m drinking beer and I’m drinking this lovely wine
That I found in the trip to Paris it’s a codon and it’s got this gorgeous little uh ohoh cap that just comes right up and then you can save it wow what what it looks like a rosé it is a Ros Rosé do you a rose on the bottom of
The bottle oh my real rose a real Ros I remember when I started drinking wine I would drink a lot of roses and then I was with I was I was producing at a local radio station the the uh host took me out for dinner uh at like I don’t know 4
O’clock in the morning or whatever it was and I ordered a glass of Rosé he said no he didn’t he says to the waiter he wants a cab wow right and so he he started training my pallet Neil Grace says hello from the San Francisco Bay Area thank
You very much and um he is toasting us with love thank you and for the holiday season this is a perfect dish because even though it was 83 degrees yesterday wasn’t it great what quen oh it’s amazing we have the best weather in the world I swear oh I we do but today
It was I don’t even think it made 70 out here in Ventura County well I’m going to I’m going to ask you some questions and do a little work at the same time um I’m I’m starting I’ve already um uh we’ve already minced a couple of uh garlic cloves uh I’m going to
Chop an onion we’ll see if I cry uh I have qu questions for you about onions I always buy sweet s onions this is not a sweet onion it’s just not um by the way you can see I should hold this up let me hold this up real quick um this is
Gwen’s new book we forgot to mention the U The plantastic cookbook it’s uh it’s great there are uh how many recipes close to a 100 close to a 100 recipes and I I uh I saw it this morning on uh on Amazon so it’s really easy and
This is a great gift for your foodie or Chef or cook in your family so you can get it uh I’ll put that back here um anyway onions do you I love the Delia sweet onions you can’t get them all the time and um this says it’s a sweet onion but
The onion is lying to me have you noticed that have you noticed that I think uh well I think sweet onions are seasonal I think they’re a little more spring and so maybe they’re Mak they’re growing them in the not most not ID climate yeah I you know we have some I
Have some friends who live in um uh Atlanta in Georgia and they can get them longer they have a longer season than we do um right we will have the recipe for this by the way with the Gwen’s permission up of course uh in the next day or two on YouTube if you’re
Watching I’m really impressed with Neo Grace he he got into our uh our show easily and that was very good so I’m chopping these I’m making them a rough cut should they be fine or well I do them a little more um you know this is really kind of a dump soup
That you just put in and it cooks and does its thing sometimes if you do a soup that you puree the bigger cuts are fine but this was a a large rather large onion so let me um we’ve cut the recipe in half because it’s just Carol and me
And every week when we make our I’m sorry I think it serves eights eight but you know soups are always great to throw in your freezer because you have them and then um and then uh and then you they’re just great to have on hand if you’re feeling a little
Under the weather and you want a little soup you just go to your freezer and um you know right so um I’m going to take another sip of beer because my eyes are tearing from the sweet onion um you told me the other day you prepare
700 meals a day five days a week I prepare 00 lunches a day and about 300 breakfasts a day so we’re a little bit closer to a th meals a day but yes we do 700 scratch lunches every day I get I’m exhausted doing two meals a
Day wow well you know I also have an awesome team so that helps tremendously I’m not doing it alone for sure and you also do catering yourself I do do catering yes yes I do I was a caterer before the pandemic fulltime and then I came into this uh this opportunity
Opened itself and so I was just super excited to uh to take it on and work with kids and work with Alice Waters and it’s just been an extraordinary experience who weeds those lunches not you Neil kids kids kids but know there we don’t really believe in kid food we
Believe in food that food is food and so while we try and keep things that we know the kids will like they’re eating things like today was H pasta bologan a and they have turkey meatballs with a Mediterranean flare and then they have Greek salad one day and they have
Tomorrow Caesar salad with chicken and then Friday we’re doing Stone Soup which is based on the book Stone Soup where everybody in the school Community all the children participated in creating you know peeling the carrots and pulling the time and taking care of stuff so that we could you know all enjoy the
Stone soup so when they have lunch on Friday all together we build a big Community table outside then they’ve helped participate in making the lunch which is really just and we’ll have to talk about the gardening too we’ll talk about that exactly have a beautiful Gard back here at our stove
Top uh I’m going to put in some olive oil I’m being generous because we’re at the end of this bottle and I can’t wait to try the new bottle of olive oil um uh I’ve got uh the garlic here now this is we love garlic and Gwen I
Think you said the same thing just before we started right never enough garlic and um so we’ve got three cloves of garlic here uh that you can see um and I’ve crushed them well to be honest Carol crushed them and um so I want to give credit
Where credit is due all right so we’re going to let that heat up a little bit whoop um we have a small garden uh it’s phow right now uh there’s there’s nothing growing I’ve got to figure out what I can grow in there but do you do the kids
At the school grow things throughout the year they do they have uh they just planted the Winter Garden and then in the spring they’ll plant the spring garden and they it’s such a great learning tool for them to come and grow and then we we have a smaller Garden so
We can’t really use the food from the garden for the lunches but we use them for cooking class and um and then I get to uh use you know they can grow something and then I get to incorporate it into a lunch so it’s really great uh
Denise Anderson is saying that she loves the fact that we’re doing a lot of garlic because um let’s see uh uh she loves a kitchen that’s not afraid of garlic um as they are at her house so that’s that is good to know Denise nice to to hear from you okay I’m going
To move this around just a little bit and I’m going to put the garlic in first can you there is nothing better than the smell of garlic and olive oil best um in in my cooking uh for the most part we use organic products how about you
And at the school absolutely we I am striving for 100% organic and um right now we do mostly organic we work with the farmers market we work mainly with the West Hollywood farmers market at this point because it’s a few blocks from the school but we also have Farmers
From all over Southern California that deliver produce and vegetables and fruits and um the kids love it because the farmers come on to campus with crates of fruits and the kids get to talk to the farmers and it’s really exciting and they get to see that we’re
Not just going to you know a store and buying just anything for them we’re buying fresh from the farm fruits and vegetables and it’s really great so I I just chopped the onions and Carol you could show this again um I just Cho these right yes in restaurants today they will
Buy a bag or a huge bag of Cho pre- chopped onions I don’t think the taste is is not the same yeah it’s not the same and there’s so many great tools now we have a rooc coup which is a wonderful super highed quison art or food processor and there’s so many tools
There’s no need to buy because it’s also laced with some chemicals to keep it from getting rotten so precut vegetables are not a great idea especially in in the onion family I’m going to move the uh onions around and the garlic by the way this has been the hardest part of this recipe
Um it’s really really easy going to add just a touch more of the olive oil and I think I’ve got the heat up now even though we’re talking about kids lunches and stuff and I think I explained this to Gwen the other day our show is for you
At home who may be sitting on your tush watching TV and that’s fine I sit on my tush and make TV but what we try to encourage you to do is to get up and get into the kitchen the kitchen is not a place to stack empty pizza boxes Gwen what do you
Think oh totally I mean to me it’s finding the joy in cooking I love to cook for my family and friends I love love you know just to find the joy to find a rest she muted herself uh Gwen we need you to come back you know technology let me know
When she comes back I don’t think you can unmute her no she uh oh yeah uh try it no Gwen come back we need you Gwen okay my onions over here if you can see are trans almost translucent I’m sorry Carol click on that uh she may sign in
Again you’ll see it there you go yay and bring her in there Tech got call okay the ru right there the rule is don’t touch your iPhone when you’re on on camera so how do I uh stop people from calling oh just let them go it it’s it
Yeah we could have we should have talked about that before uh you you turn your cellular off okay here we go um take a look at my onions and my garlic and uh looks good it’s getting translucent it looks really good i’ Let It Go a little bit longer but you’re getting
Close well if we’re going to let it go for a little bit longer put us both up please and we should have another drink oh okay twist my arm cheers right cheers so with cooking a thousand meals a day for other people when you get home
What kinds of things do you cook and you told me that you you’re becoming more and more plant-based yourself oh yeah I love plant-based food that’s my you know one of my greatest Joys and passions you know and and the in my personal dining um I eat a ton
Of plant-based and I just think that it’s such a movement to you know healthier living and um while I’m a caterer so I cook everything for everybody and I enjoy all kinds of food I really think that we can do some delicious wonderful things with plant-based food yeah I the other day I
Had a marinated grilled eggplant sandwich yeah no with no cheese it was absolutely delicious and that was uh where oh fabinis in Tarana yeah well I think that we are learning just so much more about how to make PL face food tastes good so I think it’s really
Um it’s really fun I mean it’s really fun and it’s the joy and um you know to try and find things that are plant-based and you know we did a book signing the other day and I made the Lotus kitchen cookie and it’s not only plant-based but it’s gluten-free
And there are people in tear saying we haven’t had a cookie for so long because we we are gluten-free or we’re plant-based and so to find these things that are you know that work for everybody is just lovely and and most importantly to me because I’m a chef it
Has to be delicious it has to taste good it’s not enough that it’s plantbased it has to be good Neil reminded me there are many good vegan uh cheeses and I’ve tried some of them and some of them are quite good I was at a um
I was at the natural products uh Expo West and East this year and I tried a number of vegan cheeses they’re very good they can’t nobody’s come up to my knowledge with um uh blue cheese which is my favorite cheese right right um it but we you know
Who knows soon well there’s some cheese recipes in the book I think there’s Ric I think that there is is a couple different cheeses in the book and I think that um yeah a a blue cheese I mean maybe that’s a challenge for me yeah that’s a challenge for a food scientist okay
Exactly these are starting to Brown a little bit the garlic good I think you’re ready to roll to the next uh step okay so now we can add the other stuff yeah what would you add first give them a little sauté and then you can add your veg stock okay uh I’ve
Got this is about four cups whoa of vegetable stock one more what you know I have I’ve been cooking I’m not a I’m a home cook and while I follow a recipe I also follow my own intuition if you will absolutely I mean that’s the thing a
Recipe is like a plan it’s like a a little map that you can go I want to go a little right I want to go a little left um you should by all means you know if you don’t like as much garlic don’t put as much in if you don’t like
Something or you want to add something you know I have different herbs growing in my garden that at times I’ll be like I’m adding lavender to everything so um one of the herbs that are that’s very popular is is lavender did you just say that I did Lavender is one of my
Favorite favorite herbs and I do like a lavender shortbread with lemon curb that’s delicious and lavender is just a really delightful it’s it’s really really kind of earthy and delicious and it smells fragrant and it just adds loveliness and they using them a lot in cocktails too and there’s some nutrition
Nutritionist nutrition value well more medicinal than nutritional but there there are they’re supposed to be very relaxing help you relax so like you that’s why they have a lot of lavender pillows it you relax had a lavender pillow once I sneezed all night long all right so we’re going to let
This we’re letting this come up almost to a boil yeah I would add in all your other ingredients too I I don’t see any reason why not let it all cook together okay I’ve got organic uh Crush tomatoes and I beautiful put that in um I’m going to put
In uh this is a little um it’s 6 ounces of tomato paste and I’m going to put in it the the recipe calls for like a quarter of a cup but we like to make so I don’t know how much we’ll end up with I think that’s a good amount perfect
Gwen has said perfect to me several times so I’m I really like Gwen now see if you look behind me you see all these pots these pots are full of vegetable stock because we make vegetable stock from all the scraps of the vegetables we make here in our kitchen so you
Know think of all the money we save by stuff that would not normally just get thrown away so um what I recommend for home Cooks is just to get a tupperware or a glass container and just put all your scraps in it and when it’s full make a little stock because you don’t
Really have to do anything other than season it with salt and pepper maybe throw some herbs in let it do its thing and then you’ve got sock and you can freeze it too so I took the onion apart okay I took the the dry part off and cut the
Ends off I could have put that in a tupperware container and saved it when I have celery and other vegetables lettuce leaves exactly wow the leaves the pieces we make so much vegetable sock because we do so many vegetables that we um you know have lots of uh lots of stuff and it
Reduces waste and it makes you feel good I am uh pouring out about a half a cup I think I got it just under a half a cup of red lenal I’m going to stir that up oops and then we’re going to add in some ground cumin cumin is one of my favorite
Seasoning me too and it goes well with garlic grab it it sure does so the recipe calls for two tablesp teaspoons I think I’ve got it closed do that and then we also have some curry powder and I’m using a this is a yellow curry powder I had a red
Should I use the red or the yellow um there they both would work nicely in that soup so I think use what you have I mean that’s the other thing you don’t want to not do a recipe because you’re like oh I don’t have you know yellow
Curry I only have red curry it’s like it those things are kind of interchangeable and you could discover all kinds of new things when you experiment oh does that smell good I’m going to add just a little bit more of the cumin um how did you get into
Cooking well I have um Three Brothers three older brothers and um I would get a lot of attention when um I baked especially none of them would date me by the way because I was I had three older brothers but they sure gave me attention when I baked something so then I just
Started cooking in college we made all these like amazing meals in our dorm because we couldn’t afford to do the meal plan so we had to do um the you know we cooked in our room we had a hot plate in a toaster oven and
Then I got my first apartment and I was like oh my gosh think of what I can do in this space the teeniest tiniest apartment kitchen but to me it was Paradise and I just loved cooking I just enjoy it I and I still love it I mean
Even though I do it for a living and I cook all the time it’s there’s something magical about discovering something new new about creating a new recipe um eating I think if you love to eat you should cook I think it’s also a great way of communicating so uh if a guy
Or woman you know you’re you’re single and and and you want you see somebody that maybe you’d like to be with um invite him over for dinner make the soup you know right the way to advance heart it’s it it it worked for me that’s how that’s how I got Carol I made
Her I think I made you squid I’m not sure anyway okay now this is boiling or just just just starting to boil I think you just turn it down and let it do its thing for a while okay so in a moment we’re going to taste
This but let’s go over a couple of things first of all um love to see uh the book which I have here the plantastic cookbook almost a 100 recipes this is perfect for the holidays you got Hanukkah coming up this week you got Christmas and what two and a half weeks
Um great for anybody on your list who likes to cook or if you’re you have a friend who’s vegan or vegetarian there are a lot of recipes in here that they can incorporate um are is what we’re making now glutenfree it is indeed and yeah so if you have celiacs disease
Or you just want to cut down on gluten here’s a recipe you see how I mean I put this together in what 12 minutes and then you just let it simmer um Can this simmer for like an hour or so and it’ll thicken up a little bit yeah that’s I
Ideally it would be probably about an hour or so because what happens with the red lentils is they kind of disintegrate and they kind of get into this creamy delicious goodness so it ends up being quite uh uh thick and delicious and wonderful so um but it’s patience I mean
That’s what we teach the kids right it’s like everybody wants it right away and it’s like cooking is patience you have to be patient with your ingredients with everything that’s uh that you’re doing I’m too old to have patience I don’t believe that for a second I’m gonna stir this up once now
Uh and and with the recipe that you’ve made I could see how and I’m just going to take a little bit right now you may want to season it a bit with salt and pepper but I think it’s and and we can do we’ll do that you
Know if you give me the PE some Pepper please um I uh this is such an easy recipe I mean I literally open what three cans uh little twist of pepper on my own plate um if you want a salt I uh I always buy saltree like the tomatoes had
No salt in it good that’s good you should get a little salt and then you can add your own so you can control the amount of salt you have right okay let’s oh w now I’m I’m I’m waiting a second or two before I taste it have you ever heard of the
Hot hot mouth dance no I don’t think so it’s it’s if it’s too hot you dance to get you so when we first started the show I forgot about blowing on it and took a mouthful of very hot food we were live so I did the hot mouth dance oh that’s great
Oh this is really good I think it’ll even be better when the lentils are a little more cooked and a little more the the lentils are a little still a little crunchy easy fast it’s not that spicy and you could you I guess you can put
Cayenne in if you want to sure that’s that’s that’s the dance that’s the you know that’s the music you learn the basics and then you just riff away and you just add anything you want um if you like it spicier you can make it spicier you know I mean it’s just a real
Wonderful wonderful uh easy soup yeah Carol is telling me in Sign Language kind of in language of love that the aroma of this is just phenomenal let’s take one last shot at it oh beautiful that looks great that’s going to be great dinner and um what we’re going to do is we’re
Going to have a salad um I think with the caracon dressing I think um and um and a loaf of um either sour dough baguette or French baguette uh and and that’ll be dinner this is fabulous so um again the book and the book is right here it’s called The plantastic
Cookbook and yes Delight Publications uh is a uh if you’re gluten-free take a look at Delight um magazine it’s h for gluten-free people um will you come back did you have a good time me of course would come back yeah you know yeah anytime you want to play
With a recipe I’d love it all right well we’re going to have another recipe from Gwen maybe in in February and oh that would be awesome okay we’ll do that and I’m gonna put that on my on my Mark Allen Cook’s uh um calendar Gwen hold on
Thank you very much for coming and again everybody uh The plantastic cookbook it’s a great great gift right now it’s you know Hanukkah and and Christmas uh K Quanza um but New Years is coming up I’m trying to think Valentine’s Day uh even Earth Day uh St paty’s day this would be
Great right nice Irish girl yes and um uh thank you so Gwen hold on don’t go away um I’m going to tell everybody what we’re going to do next week I don’t know we have a chef uh who’s been on before from New Orleans and we’re going to do a
Healthy New Orleans dish with Chef Barbara um with Chef Barbara she changed her name on me so I can’t read blank Chef barara blank so she’ll be up next week blank I blanked out on blank um and she’ll be on next week so we thank you very much for
Watching uh happy holidays uh if your holidays beginning this week and again uh peace love happiness for the whole world we’ll see you later next time bye-bye for now hold On It’s okay