one of my favourite quick meals is a salmon bagel !! not in the least because you can freely customise it to your hearts content, but i'm going to tell you all about my favourite way to eat this meal !!

1. depending on which kind of bagel you bought, you will either have to cut it in half or simply open the pre-sliced bagel up.
2. then, grab your tub of cream cheese and smear as much as you'd like onto your bagel !!
3. after smothering your bagel in cream cheese, you want to grab you salmon slices. i always buy pre-cut salmon, but there's no harm in cutting the slices yourself if you have the energy to do that !! as i pick up and place slices of salmon, i like to feel the piece for bones, and if i feel any, remove them before adding the slices to the bagel.
4. once you're done adding the salmon slices, it's time to add the avocado! now, it depends on what you've bought...
• if you've bought a whole avocado, then all you have to do is slice it in half, remove the pit, and scoop out the insides. i find that adding the insides to a bowl so that i can appropriately smash and mush the avocado up into a consistency i prefer is ideal !! you can make the mixture as chunky as you like !! once you're done, spread the avocado onto the other bagel, the slice that doesn't have salmon on it !!
• or, if you've bought some guacamole (which is just as yummy BTW !!) all you gotta do is open it up and spread the mixture onto the other bagel, the slice that doesn't have salmon on it !!
5. and... you're done !! of course, add or remove whatever ingredient you'd like from this mix. this is just how i prefer to eat my salmon bagels.

some additions: chilli flakes on your salmon, salt in your avocado mixture, lemon juice in your avocado mixture, etc !!

this recipe comes from my gran, actually !! i grew up eating it for events like christmas and such, but she recently taught my mom the recipe, so i've been eating it a lot more often now !! it's really yummy, and you can make a lot of substitutes if you'd prefer, but here is my grans way of making lentil soup !!

if you follow the instructions below, then this meal will feed around 6 people !!

1. grab a large pot !! the bigger the more people you can serve, but typically i just mean the biggest pot of the lot !! fill the pot up 3/4 full of water and don't turn the heat on the stove until all of the ingredients are in the pot !!
2. next, you wanna cut off the bitter green ends of the leek, and then chop the white part of the leek into thin strips. not cubes, strips. once done, add them to the pot !!
3. cut both carrot ends off, and then slice the remainder sections into chunks !! you can chop these as thick as you like em, doesn't matter the size. (i like them thin !!) throw the chunks into the pot.
4. grab your turnip and cut it in half !! this can be kind of difficult to do, so ask for help if you have to !! once it's cut in half, cut those halves in half again so that you have four chunks of turnip. this is just because it's easier to then cut the turnip into smaller chunks much easier. but before you cut the turnip into smaller chunks, you wanna peel the skin off. once all of this is done, peeling and cutting, you wanna chuck it in the pot !!
5. next is the onion !! cut it in half with the skin on because it's easier to peel the skin off once it's been cut, and you can peel the halves either by hand of with a knife. once it's been cut and peeled, you then want to slice the halves into strips just like with the leek !! use the whole onion if you wanna be faithful to my gran's recipe. throw the slices into the pot. you may have to break up the strips into smaller slices if they stick together.
• if you want to substitute less onion, you can instead use more leek! and vice versa, if you don't like leek, you can just use more onion !!
6. next, grab the stock cubes, and simply crumble them between your fingers over the pot to add em to the mix !!
7. and... thant's all your ingredients prepared !! what you wanna do now is mix everything all together in the pot before turning the heat on, just to get it all nice and mixed up. if you want, you can add a little salt during this stage too if you'd like !! we don't, but that's because my family all prefers different salt levels, so we add salt to our bowls at the end.
8. and now after everything is all mixed together, you can turn the heat on !! you want to put it on a medium heat which for us is number three (it goes up to 6). and really... you're just letting the pot simmer (without a lit) for roughly one hour, or until the carrots/turnip are soft !! easy peasy, right?
9. once the soup is ready, you can grate some carrots over the top of the pot, as many as you like, to give the soup its classic orange colour. if you do this, be sure to let the soup simmer for a further 5 minutes !!
10. and that's it !! congratulations, you've cooked my gran's homemade lentil soup !! below are some things to note.
• you shouldn't need to stir the soup so long as the heat isn't too high. if you use the correct medium heat, the ingredients wont stick to the bottom, so it's fine to just leave it to simmer for an hour !! if the heat is too high, you'll know because the lentils get stuck to the bottom of the pot.
• another way to check if the soup is ready is to look at the lentils themselves !! they turn almost clear/opaque when they've been cooker properly and thoroughly !!
• if your soup is too thick, you can thin it out by adding more hot water ONLY !! never cold water. i dunno why, my mom never told me

that's everything i think !! please, if you have the time and/or energy to make this recipe, i promise that it's super yummy !!