North African Veggie Soup

This soup is an easy throw together, especially if you took advantage of our wonderful producers at the Shed. Did you stock and freeze cut squash, carrots when they were in prime, made your veggie stock and of course cook dried chickpeas and froze them to have on hand? This a great example of the importance of preserving when items are at their prime. You can have local foods even out of season with some planning. If you haven't given thought to preserving, start thinking, for just around the corner will be another year of great produce from the Shed vendors, take a class if you are new to it, or ask some who does, see if they will help...most "foodies" are more then willing to teach and share. Besides, having help and others to share the work, just make it all the more worth it!

North African Veggie Soup

2 ½ c cooked chickpeas
3 lbs The Farm B/B cubed squash (butternut, acorn or pumpkin)
1 c diced carrots
1 lg onion, diced
1 ½ c red lentils
6 c veggie stock
1 tbs tomato paste
s/p
1 -2 tbsp Ras el Hanout*, to taste
**optional: add a drizzle or two of Wild Mountain Apiaries Honey



Throw all into a slow cooker and let cook for 6-ish hours, or until lentils are breaking down and the squash and chickpeas are tender. Adjust seasoning.

　

*Ras Hanout : There are a great many recipes for this spice mixture, but the translation is this:

Head of shop or top of shop, the best is what is used. Some can have upwards of 30 or more spices. My friend showed me this one and we figured out the whole spice to ground spice to make this easier.

1 1/2 tsp ground all spice

2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp turmeric

1 1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 1/2 tsp ground mace

1 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cardamom

Stir all of these together will yield about 1/4 c. Store in a tightly sealed jar.