Recipe of the Week

The following recipe is definitely one of our favorites!  It's one of our recurring meals.  Partly because it's not only delicious, but "souper" nutritious! ;)

Lentil and Vegetable Soup
Serves 4+, Total Time 30 min

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp olive oil
4 medium carrots, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
1 can (14.5 oz) vegetable broth
1 cup lentils
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1 bag (5 oz) spinach

Directions:

1. In a 4 quart saucepan, heat oil on medium until hot.  Add carrots and onion and, and cook 6 to 8 minutes or until lightly browned and tender. Stir in cumin; cook 1 minute.
2. Add tomatoes, broth, lentils, 2 cups water, salt, and pepper; cover and heat to boiling on high.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, 8 to 10 minutes or until lentils are tender.  Stir in spinach.

 This recipe is actually for red lentils and calls for a cup of red dried lentils.  I, however, didn't find any dried red lentils, so I just bought a bag of "regular" lentils.  When I made this recipe as written with the lentils I bought, it took forever for the lentils to become tender.  The last time I made it I let the lentils soak in the 2 cups of water for a couple of hours or so before making the soup; that really helped.  Obviously, it's a soup, so use your own preferences for size of pot/pan for cooking the onion and carrot, as well as the size that you'd like the carrot and onion pieces to be.  I've made this recipe with both fresh spinach and frozen chopped spinach; both ways are delicious, though my favorite was the fresh spinach.

I found this recipe on the Delish.com website.