Lentil Soup

serve with a meat dish, sandwiches, or eat with almost old bread

Based off of https://www.loveandlemons.com/best-lentil-soup/

This soup is a useful “garbage can” dish for veggies. You can use basically any hearty veggies in the veggie section and as long as you keep the total amount roughly the same, it'll be good.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons oil (i like olive oil)

4 garlic cloves, grated

hearty vegetables

1 medium onion, chopped

3 medium carrots, chopped

3-4 stalks of celery, chopped

spices

1 tbsp ground cumin

½ tbsp salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

soup base

1 (14-ounce) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes

1 cup dry green lentils, rinsed

4 cups any broth (preferably light like vegetable or chicken)

finish

0.5lb whole spinach (or some other hardy green)

1/4 cup white vinegar (previously 1/8th)

1 tbsp pepper flakes

2 tbsp dried thyme

½ cup chopped fresh parsley, for garnish (optional)

Steps

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add hearty vegetables and spices. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to soften, about 8 minutes.

  2. Add garlic, stir until fragrant.

  3. Add soup base. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Add the hardy green and cook for 5 minutes, or until wilted.

  4. Add vinegar and stir. Add remaining finishing ingredients as garnish

thoughts (pre): probably more lentils. maybe less carrot maybe try mushroom

thoughts (post): at least 1 cup lentils, probably double vinegar again. chinese celery didn't hold up the best. put as much pepper as you can stomach. too many carrots, maybe 3 carrots and 1.5 cup lentils, or at least smaller carrots. maybe bok choy would be good for greens!

thoughts: less carrots, switch to cumin seeds. more lentils