This fall we want to help you keep your diet, counters, and your pots & pans cleaner than they’ve ever been. So first we’ll share an easy to make carrot lentil soup recipe, and then we’ll give you a couple of quick tips on cleaning before and after a batch cooking marathon.
Try it Yourself: Carrot-Lentil Soup Recipe
Recipe & Ingredients:
- Dice 1 large onion (yellow, white or red are fine)
- Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic
- Roughly chop or dice 8 medium-sized carrots or 6 large
- Roughly chop or dice 1 potato
- Roughly chop or dice 1 sweet potato
- This soup is so versatile that you can add a few more odds and ends you find in your crisper, i.e. 1 stalk of celery, ½ red pepper, or ¼ raw butternut squash.
Instructions: Add two tablespoons of olive oil into a large pot. Turn stove on medium-high. Heat the oil for a couple minutes, then add onions. Cook until translucent, then add carrots, potatoes, garlic and any other vegetables you’ve chopped up. Sauté and stir for 15 minutes. Next, add 1 ½ cups of red lentils, and cover with water. Add salt, pepper, cumin, sage and curry powder to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
Prep: Tidy Up Your Counter
Before you start to make your soup, tidy up your counter or island, don’t worry about the rest of the kitchen or the state of your entire home. In order to enjoy making fresh food, you need to create a clean work area where you can lay out your ingredients and recipes and have room to chop. Tidying up doesn’t mean washing up, so, if you have a dishwasher, unload it so you can load it up as you go. If you don’t have a dishwasher, fill your sink with warm soapy water, and soak everything that you’d like to get out of the way.
Triple the Batch
The easiest way to keep your kitchen messy is by cooking from-scratch meals 7 days a week. Even if you’re a tidy person, making meals is tiring, so you start to cut corners when it comes to clean up. Instead of just making a pot of our Carrot-Lentil Soup, triple the batch. This way you have more food in the long run, and less clean up to deal with.
Thank Your Pots and Pans
Once your soup has been transferred to freezer bags, and some saved in containers for quick healthy meals and quick snacks throughout the week, it’s time to wash your pot. It may feel like a waste of time or a nuisance, but try this: try holding your pot and thanking it for the bounty it’s given you. Research is proving again and again that a gratitude practice is essential to a healthy life. So go ahead, give your pot a kiss, a hug, and then give it a deep scrub!
Want to keep your kitchen counters cleaner than ever before? Just contact us for a free, no-obligation estimate. Whether you want one big deep clean or to schedule a regular housekeeping routing, when you find your local MOLLY MAID and we guarantee you won’t regret seeing your home sparkle!
