Lentils.

Do you remember the some of the different things that you hated eating when you were little?

I had so many like:

1.) Mushrooms

2.) Fish

3.) Lentils

4.) Olives

5.) Capers

...but then as a grow-up, you learn to love. I have acquired the taste/flavor for all of the things above from my list except Olives. I can not stand the taste, I love the way they look and what great presentation some make but the second an olive reaches my mouth, I have to spit it out.

Anyway, the other night, as I pondered what to make out of my new ad hoc cookbook, I came across an interesting lentil soup recipe. I love lentils, and Thomas Keller's take on the classic recipe sounded soooo good. By sauteing the veggies in bacon and then adding them to the mix, I thought, oh yummy! I usually use The Barefoot Contessa's French Lentil & Vegetable Soup recipe found here, and decided to do a mix of the two recipes!

However, come to find out, I didn't have any bacon.... but what I did have, I thought was even better... the Duck Stock from Easter that I had frozen. It already had great flavor and plenty of fat :)

Some of the things that I did differently this time from others, was sauteing the veggies with duck fat that I acquired by skimming the very top layer of the duck broth, which is where all the fat sits. I also added fresh parsley, curry, and a bay leaf!

An hour and a half later, this was the end result. I added fresh corn and sprinkled it with a little more parsley. The sweetness of the corn with the saltiness of the duck fat was an amazing combination. I think the recipe serves about (10) and I am pretty sure Joseph and I had something close to that ;)