Lentil Soup and a Birthday Celebration

 We Celebrated Mom, Jamie and Mari's birthday's last Sunday night.

 Jude and Jameson don't like to look at each other.

I tried something new today.

I made lentil soup for the first time.

I was looking for a way to make plain, thin tomato soup, "meatier".

And I found this recipe. 

I revised it just a little and loved the outcome.

Here's what I did , if you want to try it;

INGREDIENTS:

1 med onion

A dollop of bacon grease

1/4- 1/2 cup lentils

2 garlic cloves

A shake or 2 each of:

red pepper flakes

parsley

thyme

Italian seasoning

oregano

salt 

pepper

2 c. chicken broth

2 c. tomato juice (I used my homemade tomato soup)

1 can Great Northern Beans

Cheese, croutons, sour cream,etc for garnish

Saute the onion in the bacon grease til softened. Add the herbs, seasonings and lentils. And continue to Saute for 5 more minutes. Stirring to avoid burning. Add the tomato juice and broth. Simmer for 30 minutes.

 It'll look something like this

 Meanwhile, I fried cubed bread in bacon grease for homemade croutons

When the soup has simmered for 30 you can blend it with a submersible blender.( Or if you don't have one you can scald yourself trying to use a regular blender, like me. Next time I will do very small portions at a time. Or you could simply skip this step)

 The blended soup will look like this. Next you add your can of beans and continue to heat til they are hot.

Add your toppings and wah-lah:

If you wanted it even meatier, it would be good with pieces of bacon and/or chicken added yet. The red pepper gave it some heat so it would be very good with a dollop of sour cream. We really liked it. Sebastian told me to make it again. It is a very low cost meal! 

I am so anxious to start growing food in the garden! If only I could some how bottle up my current enthusiasm and save it for mid July when it's 100 degrees and there are lots of weeds to pull.

Well no sense worrying about that now, it's 10 degrees outside. :/

Have a good day,

Angie