The Pride Parade in Las Vegas and a hearty soup for sore parade marching legs!
Eating something healthy was a necessity for me today. A bean soup is about as healthy as it gets! Last night, I attended two big events in Las Vegas. Before sunset, I went to the First Friday Art Festival in the Las Vegas fine arts district. The First Friday event is held on the first Friday of every month. I will publish the First Friday photographs in an upcoming blog. First Friday is an art festival that turns into a huge party. The streets are all blocked off and only pedestrian traffic is allowed. Beer tents, wine tasting tents and cocktail tents provide refreshing libations. Las Vegas food vendor trucks set up shop in the area and they offer some cutting edge carnival style cuisine. After eating a dinner that consisted of food truck cuisine last night, my tummy was craving something healthy, so this red lentil soup was a nice choice. I walked miles, while wandering around the First Friday Art Festival. Then I had another healthy walk to where the Las Vegas Pride Parade event was taking place. It was standing room only at the big party oldest gay bar in Las Vegas. I was on my feet all night! A high protein soup, like this red lentil soup, is great for nursing sore leg muscles! The Las Vegas Pride Parade was fabulous! The parade had a huge crowd of spectators and Pride supporters. The number of the Pride Parade participants and sponsors has increased over the past few years and this year the parade entrants stretched out for miles. The Pride Parade is also known as the Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade. Everybody that shows support of the Pride movement and community was there! The slogans, signs and recitations sent positive messages of equality and hope for a world without hate. Smiles could be found everywhere at the Pride Parade! It was quite a festive atmosphere. Rainbow colors were seen everywhere. Entertaining floats rolled down the street and the floats were definitely not the kind of floats that you would see in a Mummer's Parade! Ha! Ha! Ha! Pride Parades are risque alternative events worldwide. A Pride Parade in Las Vegas really takes the cake as far as risque creativity goes! I saw a lot of friends and familiar faces at the Pride Parade. Many people in the parade remembered me and they were happy to pose for my camera. Strangers in the crowd thought that I was some kind of a magazine reporter, because I was using a big fancy professional camera, so they asked to have their pictures taken. This was a fun way to meet new faces and I handed the not so camera shy paparazzi seekers my business cards that had the links printed on them for where the photographs could be found. I really had a good time photographing the Las Vegas Pride Parade and all the photographs turned out good! I snapped well over 300 photographs of the 2012 Las Vegas Pride Parade. The sampler of pictures posted above on this page can be viewed as larger images. Click on any photo and a slide show mode will appear! I posted the entire Pride Parade event photographs at Facebook for all my friends and the public to see. To see all the photographs of the Las Vegas Pride Parade at Facebook, just follow this link: 2012 Las Vegas Pride Parade Facebook Photo Album
Red Lentil Soup Recipe: This recipe makes one large serving of soup! I made this soup with no garlic. Red lentils have a unique delicate flavor and garlic is not necessary. The small amount of roasted red bell pepper is fine for flavoring the butter or olive oil in this soup. Heat a sauce pot over medium/medium low heat. Add 3 pats of unsalted butter. (Use olive oil if you are a strict vegetarian!) Add 2 tablespoons of small diced peeled celery. Add 1 tablespoon of small diced carrot. Add 1 tablespoon of small chopped onion. Saute till the mirepoix vegetables start to become tender, Add 1/2 tablespoon of small chopped roasted red bell pepper. Saute for 1 minute. Add 3 cups of vegetable stock. Add 1/2 cup of red lentils. (masoor dahl) Add 1 bay leaf. Add 1 pinch of marjoram. Add 1 pinch of turmeric. Add sea salt and black pepper. Add 1 small pinch of cayenne pepper. Add 1 small pinch of ground celery seed. Gently simmer the soup, till the lentils and vegetables become very tender. The soup will simmer and reduce to about enough volume to fill one large soup bowl by this time. Remove the soup from the heat. Remove the bay leaf. Use an electric pureeing wand to finely puree the soup. The soup should have a medium thin sauce consistency after pureeing. Note: If you do not have a puree wand, then a food processor can be used to puree the soup, but first allow the soup to cool to room temperature. Then gently reheat the pureed soup. The soup can be pressed through a fine mesh strainer, if you want to puree this soup the old fashioned way. Keep the pureed red lentil soup warm over very low heat.
Roasted Red Jalapeno Pepper Garnish: Lightly brush 1 red jalapeno pepper with olive oil. Place the pepper on a roasting pan. Roast the red jalapeno in a 350 degree oven, till the skin on the pepper becomes loose and lightly caramelized. Allow the roasted red jalapeno to cool. Remove the loose pepper skin and the stem. Split the roasted red jalapeno in half and remove the pulp and seeds. Julienned slice the roasted red jalapeno and set it aside. Note: Julienne is 1/8" x 1/8" x 2 1/2"-3". Sliced long thing strips of any length are also referred to as julienne. Batonnet is 1/4" x 1/4" x 2 1/"-3". There is a word for everything in the French cooking language!
Red Lentil Soup with Roasted Red Jalapeno Chile Garni: Pour the red lentil soup into a shallow large soup bowl. Gently place the julienne sliced roasted red jalapeno on the center of the soup, so is floats. Place 3 small Italian parsley leaves on the surface of the soup around the roasted red jalapeno chile garni.
A nice satisfying red lentil soup with the zing of a mildly spicy roasted red jalapeno. This soup tastes nice and it looks good too! Yum! ... Shawna
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