Easy Chickpea Soup (or what to make when the holidays have totally tired you out)

I said I'd see you in the New Year. I obviously underestimated the power of a simple recipe to bring me here... so I could share it with my fellow tired-from-the-holiday bloggers.

This is a variation on a Greek soup which uses fresh rosemary and lemon juice (which you too can use if it's what's in your kitchen, in place of the fennel and vinegar).

As for me, I poked around in my herb garden and found fresh fennel growing under the leaf mulch. Here's what happened...


Easy Chickpea Soup


Saute until barely brown...

• 1/2 onion, chopped


Add and simmer several minutes...

• chickpeas (2 cans or 1 1/2 cups dried and cooked); mash some of the chickpeas to thicken soup
• chickpea water or if using canned, vegetable broth to cover


Add and simmer about 1 minute more...

• a few asparagus, chopped (I used leftovers)
• few sprigs fresh fennel, chopped
• dash sugar
• few dashes brown rice vinegar
• dash to 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• sea salt to taste
• black pepper to taste

Finish...

Drop in a TB of butter.

This tasted really good with leftover challah bread and butter. And I like raisins, so I threw a few into my soup! An apple salad would be a great compliment too, except I didn't have the energy to make it.

Merry Christmas

I thought it was fun that Real Simple Magazine used our photo of handmade Christmas wrapping paper. That was from one of the very first posts here, called Miracles.

Speaking of miracles. May your holiday be filled with small ones.

Merry Christmas, and I'll see you in the New Year.


Unknown painting (unknown to me!) in the Louvre. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

To the Lake, to the Ribbon Red

This is what little Sonia, age 9, does when she gets some time on her hands...


To the lake, to the ribbon
red, to the time of Kantay,
to the purple shell to the
day of Portlant to the year
of 280 to the place you know
to the people you love, to the
things you think to the places
you dream of, to the light you
seek to what keeps you from
wondering to the love you
give to the love you receive
to what you know is the secret
to the path that you know
is the road to follow.

Poem by Sonia. Drawing by Sonia. Photo by L.L. Barkat.