Time For The SAL!

It's time to start our Save-A-Long!

I'm excited. What do you think this can become? I'd like your ideas, too, not just mine. How will you "Do more with less?" What will you do to make hard times a bit more bearable? Can we face a recession with smiles on our faces?

I promise I'll be putting in a big effort to reduce my own debt. I did really well for the holidays, and only bought gifts with cash. We have had a smaller Christmas, and had fun with family activities rather than expenses...How about you?

I suggested including recipes that can be really fine food, but low cost ingredients, and tonight I made this:
it's a lentil soup, and it's not completely vegetarian (tho you could adapt it to be). I promise it really was good, so I'm pleased (especially because it made a LOT). I think I may have to freeze some of it for later in the month.

Here's my recipe:

1 15.5 oz package of garlic & herb lentils (dried) - I used Hurst's Brand
2 14.5 oz cans of chicken broth
4 2/3 c water
1 16 oz package frozen "soup-starter-type" vegies - celery, onions, and carrots
1/2 16 oz. package of frozen mustard greens (or your choice of greens)
1-2 T olive oil

The seasoning is already in the bag of lentils, so I did not add anything else. This is wonderfully garlic-ky!

I rinsed the lentils, and brought the chicken broth and water to a boil, then added the lentils. I let them come back to a boil. Add the olive oil, and the frozen celery, onion, and carrot mix. Simmer for 30-45 minutes (till you have the type of base you like...less time means a watery-er soup. At the very last few minutes add in your greens. I prefer mustard greens, they're rich in calcium and don't have the oxalic acid spinach has that binds to calcium and pulls it out of your system. But you can easily use turnip greens, collards, kale, whatever you like.

I'll tell you this made a LOT of soup. I toasted some Artisan bread with garlic cloves in it and that was my meal tonight. I'm hopeful it will offer the same sort of "good luck" in the New Year that the more traditional foods do. After all, there's greens, and round legumes, even if it's not black-eyed peas.

Take a look in the sidebar there - that button for the SAL is a photo of a lovely embroidered piece made by Rhonda and she gave me permission to use it for this SAL blog button. If you'd like to join us, please do, but please save the button to your own space, okay?

How much fun can we have with this? (I suspect a lot!)