Blue Cayenne

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for a warm and comforting Spinach and Potato Soup. It’s just the thing to warm up those cold winterish days. 

You don’t want to miss this great recipe…again.

Want to dive deeper into our recipe archive? Just click one of the categories at the top of this page or use the category search drop down menu on the right side of this page.

And…here is a link to Blue Cayenne’s main page: Blue Cayenne.If you are in the mood to cook (or eat!), we hope you will take a moment to look at the many excellent recipes we have featured.

Do you love pistachios?

Do you love a decadent cake?

If you’ve answered “yes” to both of these questions, this is the cake for you. 

Plus, if you love food trivia, here is a bit of pistachio trivia to regale your friends when you serve them a slice of this delicious cake. Pistachios are fruits. (Who knew?) They are a “drupe”–a member of the same fruit family as raspberries, peaches and olives.

This recipe is from the cookbook Skinny Taste Simple and is available online on The Splendid Table site (Flourless Pistachio Cake). You can buy the cookbook through your local bookstore or online from Amazon here.

Here is the recipe for the cake as I prepared it in my kitchen. It is special enough to be served to guests. (It would be great served with a scoop of quality French vanilla ice cream!) At the same time, it is simple enough to serve as a snack or even a breakfast pastry. Personally,  I can attest to this after numerous taste testings of this cake! It just keeps drawing you back to the kitchen for one (or two or three) more bite.

I pretty much adore lentils–especially the delicate earthy-flavored red/orange ones. 

I can’t remember where I had my first taste of lentils. I’m sure it was after I was an adult. I’m thinking it was probably in India when our guide, Krishan, took us into his home to share a meal.  There, I remember marveling at his wife’s seemingly-never ending collection of jars filled with colorful pulses (lentils, beans and peas) displayed on her counter. Later, I remember seeing women sitting on the roadside in the Indian countryside deftly maneuvering  large round wicker baskets so as to  toss freshly-grown lentils into the air to winnow out the stones.   

Lentil dishes abound there and have for centuries. Food historians believe they were one of the world’s earliest domesticated crops.

The little disk-shaped legumes didn’t become popular here until World War II when they were an economic and high-protein meat substitute. Today, most American lentil production is centered in the Pacific Northwest. 

Lentils are very good for you, with some calling them “the world’s oldest health food.” A half cup of lentils packs 12 grams of protein and 9 grams of fiber into a scant 140 calories!

This Red Lentil and Butternut Squash Soup With Coconut Milk is a Melissa Clark recipe from her great cookbook, Dinner–Changing the Game. The cookbook is available through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.

This soup is delicious, non-dairy and full of heathy ingredients. In Clark’s version, you can add optional fresh baby spinach to ramp its healthy credentials. 

Here is the soup as I prepared (and enjoyed) it in my kitchen.  (You can find a number of other great lentil recipes on Blue Cayenne. Just type “lentils” into the search box on this page.)