"Carve out your writing time and defend it like an angel with a flaming sword," I say again and again. Most of us are carving out writing time from the crannies of an already busy life and the hacks for doing that are often simple, practical things. Like a shower after work, to reset your mind and reenergise you. Or having food already sorted, to win that extra time. In my personal life, I'm the queen of recipe sharing (I don't think my Facebook friends know I do anything besides cook) so I thought I'd share a recipe here, each season, of handy writing food.
The perfect writing-food recipe has two criteria:
- Time-saving: incredibly quick to make or very easy to make a double batch of and freeze for your writing time. That's carving out the time.
- Low carb: I'm a big fan of carbs, but there's nothing like a sandwich to pole-axe my afternoon or evening's writing with yawns. Carbs = sleepy, so low carbs is defending the time.
And, it should go without saying, delicious: a treat to eat, just as writing time is a treat to have. Economical is also a major plus-point: if you can work less, you can write more. If you want to drop to a four-day week, to write more, you want perfect writing food that matches that.
With those criteria, absolutely brainstorm what's in your repertoire already: we start from where we are. That said, winter writing food can be a challenge. The writing-day salads I joyously chow down six months of the year have no place on a freezing misty day. Most gleeful wintery bulk-cooks are swimming in creamy carbs. And while I have a ton of low-carb bakes I make and freeze in heroic quantities, I figured the inaugural recipe should be a tad more accessible.
I'd been puzzling over this for two months. Then we got Covid, just as we'd run the freezer down in advance of Christmas cooking, and I went through my recipe list for "What can I make in five minutes, while feverish and swaying, which will sort us out for several days?" and returned to this absolute marvel:
Bhakti Dahl Soup is a warming, bright and fragrant lentil soup, lively with ginger and chilli. It's reviving, nourishing, and incredibly quick to put on. As a bonus, it's vegan and gluten-free. (I'm an omnivore and
gluten-enthusiast, but I'll make sure recipes I post here either suit
everyone or are easily adaptable.) And it wins prizes for thriftiness.
Why it's quick: It uses hing, aka asafoetida, aka yellow powder, instead of onions and garlic, which cuts down on prep time. If you have a food-chopper, you can throw the ginger and chilli together into that, to speed it up still more. The only other prep is grating a courgette. The rest is frying spices, opening a tin of tomatoes, and pouring things into the pot. So with five minutes' prep, you've got a six-portion soup which freezes beautifully. It does need to simmer for 30-40 mins, but you can carry on writing while it does. If it's just for you, freeze the other 5 portions for future writing sessions: it freezes perfectly. And if you're feeding a household army, it's very easy to double the recipe, or even triple it if you have a big enough pot.
Scroll on for the recipe or download it as a PDF here.
To use the PDF as a scrollable on your phone, download Adobe Acrobat Reader free from Google Play or the Apple Store. When you open your PDF in the Adobe Acrobat Reader app, tap the Liquid Mode icon at the top for easy scrolling. I've repeated quantities in the method, so you don't need to scroll back and forth while cooking.
Bhakti Dahl Soup
Serving and times
- Active time: 5–10 mins
- Simmering: 30–40 minutes
- Makes: 5–6 portions
Ingredients
Spices
- 1 Tablespoon cumin seeds
- 1 Tablespoon black mustard seeds
- 1–2 inches ginger, finely chopped / grated
- 1–2 green chillis, finely chopped
- ½ teaspoon hing (also called asafoetida or yellow powder)
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
Other ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon ghee or oil
- 1 courgette, grated
- 1 teacup red lentils (170g)
- 1 tin tomatoes
- 5 teacups boiling water (1 litre)
- 1 teaspoon salt
Optional: to serve
- Fresh coriander, if you have any and fancy it
- Handful of spinach leaves stirred in and wilted just before serving
- Generous dollop of yoghurt
Method
- Grate 1 courgette and discard the top.
- Chop / grate 1–2 inches ginger and 1–2 chillies.
- Boil a litre of water in the kettle.
- Heat 1 Tablespoon oil or ghee to medium-high in a good-sized pot.
- Add the dry spices: 1 Tablespoon cumin seeds, 1 Tablespoon black mustard seeds.
- As soon as the mustard seeds start to crackle like tiny popcorn (usually about 30 seconds), turn the heat to medium-low and add the wet spices: ginger and chilli.
- Stir for 30 seconds or so till fragrant, then add the powdered spices: ½ teaspoon hing, 1 teaspoon turmeric.
- Stir to mix well then add a teacup of red lentils (170g approx) and the grated courgette. Add the tin of tomatoes and 5 teacups (1 litre) of hot water. If the tomatoes are whole, use a potato masher to break them down.
- Stir in a teaspoon salt.
- Simmer for 30–40 minutes till the lentils are soft and mostly broken down.
- Serve it as it is, or add whatever you fancy: a handful of fresh spinach stirred through to wilt down, a sprinkling of fresh coriander on top, a dollop of yogurt in it. Bliss out on the lively flavours and enjoy your writing!
Notes
- Weights and measures: This recipe is very happy with approximation. I use an actual teacup instead of weighing / measuring, with a 1:5 ratio of lentils:water.
- Ginger & chilli: Original recipe says 1 inch ginger, 1 chilli; I double both. (And I sometimes add more chillis, if they’re mild. I like heat.)
- Storing ginger: When you buy it, cut off any very tough bits of skin, chop it into 1-inch lengths, and freeze it in a ziplock bag: you then always have fresh ginger to hand. To use it, I blitz it from frozen in my food chopper, along with the chilli. You can also grate it. I don’t bother peeling it.
- Hing aka asafoetida aka yellow powder: If you don’t know it, Hare Krishna recipes use this in lieu of onion or garlic and you’ll smell why! You can find it in most Asian groceries (eg Tahmid Stores on Cowley Road), usually in a bright yellow container. It comes from the resin of giant fennel plants and is wonderfully pungent.
- Freezing & portioning: Always cool food fast to freeze it, and freeze it in the portion sizes you need. I allow just under 300ml per person. To label it, I stick masking tape on the tupperware and write in Sharpie.
Recipe credits: The Higher Taste (Hare Krishna recipe book)
Enjoy! And if you make it and use Instagram or Facebook, do tag me: I'm always thrilled to see people making the recipes I've sent them.
