We got a little creative and decided to make a second quiche with bacon, asiago, and feta. It was good, but the gruyere quiche was the clear winner. This was the perfect easy brunch/lunch/dinner. Yes, I will be eating it for my next four meals. It’s that good.

Now, I may be adapting the phrase just a tad…but I like it better this way. One question I am constantly asking myself is “what is better than lentil soup?” Strangely the answer I constantly give is a definitive “NOTHING!”

It even has healing powers.

It was really easy to turn our lentils into delicious soup.

First, dump the leftovers into a pot.

They may look slightly undead, but unlike zombies they make fantastic soup.

Then add tomato paste, one box of chicken broth, cumin (to taste), and salt.

Just in case you were unsure what these things looked like

Once the vegetables are cooked through (they weren’t quite done in our original lentil dish), take out a bit of the soup and blend it together. I’m not sure why you are supposed to do this step – but I promise it is vital to the whole magical process.

Do your thing knockoff magic bullet

Because I am now a culinary genius (though I had to look up how to spell culinary), I thought a little lemon zest and juice would make the soup even more scrumptious (that I know how to spell).

And it did!

In about 20-30 minutes, I had lentil soup! After ladling it into a bowl, I added even more lemon juice (Seriously, is there a thing called lemon soup? If so, I would probably eat it every day). For me, this week included a good Sunday meal and AMAZING leftovers!

It may look like something that's already been digested, but I promise it tasted good!

We made a lentil and Italian sausage stew, inspired by a recent post on Homemade Delish. Lentils have amazing health benefits, including (but not limited to) their ability to lower cholesterol, stabilize blood sugar, make teeth whiter, lower risk of heart disease, improve dance moves, reduce appetite, and endow the eater with telepathic powers. Really, they do almost half of those things. Now that we’ve got you on the lentil bandwagon, lets learn how to cook them!

To start, add three pounds of lentils, six bay leaves, and three quarts of chicken broth to a pan and bring to a boil. Once it starts boiling, reduce the heat to keep it at a low boil and let cook for about 40 minutes.

I honestly have no idea what they bay leaf is for, but it made the pictures a little prettier!

While the lentils cook, chop up 1 lb of carrots, 9 stalks of celery, 9 cloves of garlic, and two shallots. Once chopped, transfer them to pretty bowls so you can pretend you are on a cooking show!

Look! Vegetables!

It's like Mickey Mouse made out of veggies.

Add the vegetables to a pan with olive oil and cook over medium heat for a while. We only cooked them for about 8 minutes, but that was not nearly long enough. We recommend at least doubling it.

What’s that? You don’t know how to put vegetables into a pan? No worries! Our latest installment of embarrassing cooking videos will show you the way!

With videos like that, I don’t know how we aren’t famous yet. I forgot to take pictures of the next few steps (I was traumatized from being filmed), so you will have to use your imagination. Unless you want me to add in some paint illustrations like this one.

Once you have cooked the veggies for a while, add in two cans of diced tomatoes, a bit of cinnamon and ground cloves, and a LOT of salt and pepper. When the lentils are done cooking, drain them, remove the bay leaves, and return them to the pot. Add the veggies and half a bottle of white wine and let simmer on low heat while the sausage cooks.

This is about when it starts looking like a regurgitated mess. Don't worry; that means you are doing it right!

To cook the sausages, coat them in olive oil and bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. Serve on top of the lentils and garnish with a bay leaf if you are being fancy.

Real chefs use garnishes.

This meal also makes versatile leftovers. The sausages can be served the next night with onions and peppers, and I think Jill is going to turn her leftover lentils into lentil soup later this week!

Jill and I got sophisticated this week in honor of the Oscars and made the most delicious meal in the history of our blog: Beef Wellington! That’s right, it’s so fancy I had to capitalize it. For leftovers, I knew I needed to kick it up a notch in order to maintain this snazzy streak we are on. Ergo, I decided to try making a reduction sauce.

Reduction sauces are basically really delicious gravy. My dad always makes them with steak, and he is an amazing cook, so I knew if I was successful I would have something to be proud of. My dad likes to joke about how I don’t like gravy unless you call it a “reduction sauce.” I also don’t like meat loaf unless you call it “meat balls,” or hamburger unless you call it “ground beef,” or yard work unless you call it… nope, there is nothing you can call yard work that will make me like it. Sorry, Dad.

Spoiler alert: The sauce was delicious.

Here are all the ingredients you need. Simple enough?

Best thing about cooking with wine? Left over wine for drinking!

To make a reduction sauce, start by putting some butter, chopped scallions, and red wine in a pan. Preferably, you will use a pan you just cooked meat in, but since this was a leftovers night I had to forgo the added deliciousness of meat fat. Stir the pan as it cooks over medium heat until the wine has basically all evaporated.

I also don't like onions unless you call them "scallions".

Then add in the beef stock and cook it down until it is the desired consistency. If you want it to thicken more, lower the heat. You can slowly add in more butter during this step if you want to make it taste better and gain a couple pounds. (Of course, I did.) I also added pepper, because I love pepper.

The end result:

Even better than the first night!

For the record, these are not actual questions people have asked us. We made them up. They are questions we imagine that people would ask us, if we were super famous and everyone read our blog and wanted to know everything about us. We wrote the post in case we ever do get super famous overnight, because we might not have time to answer everyone’s questions in between interviews and book signings, and we wouldn’t want half the world to go to bed with unanswered questions about Two Girls, Ten Potatoes swimming in their heads.

Q. Why is your blog named Two Girls, Ten Potatoes? Do you always cook potatoes?

A. No, we do not always cook potatoes, but we do enjoy eating them very much. Aside from bread, they are our favorite food group. We would love to cook them every week, but then we might grow morbidly obese, have a heart attack, and die–which would upset our fan base, especially because that fan base consists mainly of our parents. Additionally, the “ten potatoes” serves as an homage to our very first post, Krubs, which actually required more than ten potatoes, but we liked the alliteration in the title.

Q. Speaking of heart attacks, why don’t you ever cook healthy things?

A. Healthy things don’t taste good. They also don’t make great leftovers. We have found that the more butter something has, the better it will taste reheated. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever make healthy things–one time,  we made harira. We have also been known to eat grapes on occasion.

Q. Lots of people blog about cooking; what sets your blog apart?

A. The main focus of our blog actually isn’t cooking; it’s leftovers. We really only cook so that we have leftovers to eat the rest of the week. We are lazy like that. Also, most people that blog about cooking are pretty good cooks; we are not, so that should set up apart. Also, potatoes.

Q. Who is that cute dog you are always feeding scraps to?

A. That is Kelly’s dog, Milo. He has his own blog here. He doesn’t update very it much. He doesn’t have thumbs (or any fingers, for that matter) so using the computer can be a struggle.

Q. What if I want to cook with you?

A. Please do!  We love guest cooks. That way we don’t have to touch the raw meat.  That is, unless you are a crazy psycho killer.  If you are, we would rather you just use our recipes and start your own blog, titled “Crazy Psycho Killer Ways to Cook Human Flesh”! We will link to you. Really…

Q. I have a question that you didn’t answer yet. What do I do?

If you have a burning question for us, it probably means we are already famous and won’t have time to answer it, but you are welcome to post it in the comments just in case. (Mom, just call.)

Kelly and Jill

I promise we did not steal a picture from Wikepedia, this is OUR food!

Just in case you are unaware, this Sunday was the most important day of the year – OSCARS SUNDAY.  This Sunday beats all others.  Thats right, I claim that it is better than Super Bowl Sunday, Easter Sunday, and that rare time when your birthday falls on a Sunday – Sunday. This occasion transcends sports, religion, and birthdays – its all about the movies.

Just in case you were wondering…this is my favorite acceptance speech of all time

That would be me, except my voice would probably crack more and I would definitely be jumping the entire time!

Anyway, Kelly and I thought it would be fun to make a special Oscars-themed meal!  What does that mean?  We aren’t actually sure either.  Because a number of the nominated movies were set in France or England (yay Meryl Streep!), we decided it meant something from Europe.  Bob (my roommate) suggested Beef Wellington, or Beef En-Croute.  This is both a traditional English and French meal – check out wikepedia!

Here is the wikipedia picture (just in case you don’t want to click away from our blog – we totally understand that our page is far too interesting to leave).

You decide whose looks more appetizing!

First, you start by using kitchen twine to tie your meat.  Neither Kelly or I know why you are supposed to do this.  We assume it is to make it stay in a tight shape, so wrapping it in pastry later is easier.  Either that or to make your meat look fancy.

If I told you to think of beef in a straight jacket, is this what would come to mind?

Next, you sear the meat in a frying pan.  Make sure the oil is nice and hot, then put each strip in only long enough to brown the outside.  You don’t want to cook it all the way through!

After searing the meat, coat the strips with oil and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes at 425 degrees.  About every 5-7 minutes, make sure to add more oil to the meat.

Our hand models are a little pale. However, it is February, so we allow it.

Once the meat is done cooking.  Take it out of the oven and set aside to cool.  Next, you are supposed to do about 20 things at once, and by 20 I mean two.  It only feels like 20 because we are not used to cooking meals with so many moving parts!

The next step is to make something to top the meat with.  Kelly and I chose mushrooms and shallots (parents, please don’t die of shock – yes, I actually ate them and didn’t pick them off!!).  Kelly thought it would be a good idea for me to act like Rachel Ray and explain this process.

Once you are done sauteing the topping, set it aside to cool.  The next step is to make crepes – something Kelly turned out to have natural talent at making.  I think she may leave our blog to become a famous crepe maker.  (Trust me, we will all miss her if this happens because she is the one that keeps each week’s meal from turning into hot dogs and toasters strudel.)

I don't think the photo quite captures the natural beauty of a Kelly Crepe (name trademarked by Kelly)

Once the magnificent crepes (am I over emphasizing how amazing these crepes were?) are done, you top the meat with the onions and shallots, roll them in a crepe, then roll everything in a puff pastry.  Sounds ridiculously complicated?  Yeah, that would be because it is super fancy and awesome.  I’ve decided that once you have cooked something stuffed inside a crepe, inside a pastry…you are a real chef!

Step one: DON'T FORGET TO REMOVE THE TWINE...moron (that was my bad...)

Okay, apparently you are only a real chef if you remember to remove the twine you tied on your meat.  Spoiler: I did eventually remember – I just happened to remember after I had already begun rolling the pastry.  However, Kelly caught my mistake in time.  Seriously, if this Kelly Crepe thing takes off, I’m in trouble.

I understand it looks a little silly, but that is because all crazy advanced cooking techniques look silly to the untrained eye

Once rolled, do fancy things with the extra puff pastry and brush on an egg wash.

The triple X in the middle shows we mean business!

After baking for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, you reduce the temperature to 350 and cook until the pastry is a nice golden brown.  At the last minute, we decided to add some potatoes (of course!).

A meal worthy of this spectacular night - possibly even worthy of Meryl

Our friend Liz joined us to eat our amazing meal and watch the Oscars! (She also kicked our butts in Oscars BINGO and ballots – she may not be invited next year…)

That's right, we got swanky!

That bag is full of delicious broth...and so is his mustache

Before long, my inner monologue had turned this small issue into a full fledged Trixie Beldon/Nancy Drew mystery (Trixie Beldon was a superior Nancy Drew…superior because she had better hair).  I was determined to locate the culprit no matter how many ridiculous scenarios I might get myself into on the way to the truth!  However, that book would have never sold a single copy.  It only took about two seconds of Kelly and I standing perplexed in our work kitchen before someone informed us that the noodles probably soaked up all the liquid.

No good stiefs! (Stief = combination thief and "one who steals")

I cannot speak for Kelly, but I had no idea that cute, innocent looking noodles would be so audacious as to ruin the first fancy-ish thing I had ever cooked.  I was betrayed by a food I once considered a friend (as spaghetti was the only thing besides tacos I knew how to cook before this blog).  However, the “soup” still tasted like Moroccan goodness, minus the slerpy-ness.

Add a few lemon slices and you begin to forget the betrayal

To fix our meal, Kelly and I tried adding a bit of beef broth (and in my case a little bit of water as well).  It actually turned our Harira into soup-like food once again.  Yes, the flavors did change, but not dramatically.  I now understand why my Moroccan house family never put quite so many noodles into their version of harira.

Now, for a little background on why our last post was called Moroccan Spaghetti-O’s.

The *extremely culturally sensitive* name came from my study abroad trip back in college – Term in the Middle East (TIME).  I stayed with an amazing family in Fez, Morocco with my friend Shannon (check out her fantastic blog here).  One night, we were served a dish that was a delicious tomato broth with tiny little ring pastas in it.  True story, it looked like spaghetti-o’s.

That, or I was really, really homesick for crappy American food

So, because Shannon and I couldn’t actually remember the name of this amazing soup, we did what any true American would have done – completely changed its name so no one had any idea what we were talking about.  I will always remember it as one of my favorite meals during my homestay.  I was really excited  to cook something from my study abroad trip for our blog.  Even though it wasn’t the best attempt, it reminded me of some fantastic experiences with some amazing people – and it did taste pretty darn good!

Shout out to Time '09!

Headlines of the Week:

• Zoey Deschanel, star of The New Girl, caught smuggling Canadian babies into US, selling for $7.50 a piece to diaper companies for advertising purposes.
• James Franco launches fundraising campaign to provide food and shelter to extra terrestrials living in Zimbabwe.
• Space ship crashes in Africa, aliens claim to be summoned by Tom Cruise.
• Blue Ivy set to star in Willow Smith biopic: Parent’s Just Don’t Understand.