Soup. Is. Awesome. That’s right, I said it. I am no longer the reckless youth I once was. I no longer eat what can be barely considered food. I no longer leave a pot of Campbell’s Soup sitting on the stove over night only to eat it the next day. No, today I am mature. Sophisticated. And sophisticated, mature people (read: OLD) eat mature things, like soup.
It’s safe to say there is rarely a week that I don’t eat some kind of soup. It’s delicious (when done right), it’s healthy (when done right) and if you prepare a big enough pot it can last you the whole week (or you could freeze it, depending on the soup). This is usually want I do. Come the weekend I cook a pot of soup for lunch throughout the week. It’s also nice for a quick last minute dinner, but when you’re already eating the stuff once a day for a week already, the addition of it on the dinner menu gets old.
One of my staples is lentil soup. Legumes (beans) are an excellent source of protein and lentils are the second highest source in the legume family (soy takes first). Lentils are also great because you can buy them dried (cheap) and don’t have to worry about softening them prior to cooking. This dish also demonstrates another great thing about soups: their flexibility and versatility. You can really do a lot to vary this recipe and chances are it’ll still come out delicious (unless you do something wacky like add peanut butter or cheese or something. i offer no guarantees if you go all “mad scientist” on this thing). This can really be considered a “base” recipe. I often up the veggie ratio. Go nuts with this one. And better yet, let us know how it turns out!
And yes, I totally acknowledge how visually unappealing this soup is.
Simple (Healthy!) Lentil Soup
adapted from Alton Brown
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion; chopped
1 carrot; chopped
1 celery stalk; chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
8 cups of water or broth (I normally use eight cups of water and some frozen stock, but bouillon cubes could also work)
10 oz of lentils; picked over, rinsed and drained
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes (whole or stewed could also work in a pinch)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp pepper
salt to taste
Sweat the onions, carrots, celery and garlic with the olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed pot for about 10 minutes. The onion should start appearing translucent.
Add everything but the salt (simple, huh?). Let simmer for 45 minutes. Add salt to taste. Done. Eat. Be full.
You probably already know this, but some people might not:
Add a whole grain to legumes (either on the side, in the soup, or at some other point in the day) it is a complete protein. Most people like brown rice/barley/quinoa, but by far the fastest grain I know of is scooped out of a bag of frozen corn kernels.
Great tip. Corn is a whole grain? I did not know that.
I love lentil soup. We have it at least twice a week. Elizabeth puts some turkey sausage in there to give it a little meat and a bit of a kick. The neat thing about this recipie is that you really don’t need much (if any) salt at all. We’ll look into using your recipie once and see how it compares!
Definitely let us know how it turns out. Variety is the spice of life.
Hola. I made this soup a bit ago since it looks like something that will stay in my fridge for a while. We soup-er (ha…) liked it.
I added two potatoes, 2 more cups of water, some cheese on top, and some adobo. I’m British… we like our potatoes. Edgardo is Puerto Rican… he likes his adobo. Definitely would recommend this recipe.
Here is a picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgardovega/3030175111/
Glad it was a success. I’ve never used adobo much; quite the foreign ingredient for me. I’ll have to give this a shot.