Lentil and Vegetable Soup — Excellent for All Seasons!

Last year, Andy and I went to his co-worker Claudia's condo for a Mexican cooking lesson.  Among the delicious things we ate was a super-yummy and filling lentil soup.  Although Claudia didn't use many vegetables in her version of the soup (potatoes, tomatoes and onion), with the bountiful set of vegetables from my weekly CSA deliveries, I decided to make her recipe into more of a vegetable and lentil soup this year.  I've made the soup about 3 – 4 times this spring, summer, and now fall.  Each time I've used a different set of vegetables and the result has never disappointed, so I would definitely recommend customizing this recipe to incorporate your favorite ingredients, no matter the season!  I would also recommend making this soup over weekends to serve as several weekday take-to-work lunches as well.

This recipe makes about 4 meal-size servings.

Ingredients

• 4 cups water
• 1 cup lentils, washed and picked through for stones (though I admit I do a cursory job of this)
• 1 medium onion, quartered and then 3 of the sections chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, 2 cloves whole and 2 coarsely chopped
• 2 hot peppers (serranos, jalapenos and/or poblanos depending on your preference), sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
• 2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, sliced into 1/2 inch circles
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 2 tbls. vegetable oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Bring water, lentils, the full quarter of the onion, the 2 whole cloves of garlic and 1 tsp. salt to a boil
• After the soup boils, reduce heat to a simmer for 20 minutes.
• While the soup is simmering, in a separate medium saucepan, heat vegetable oil on medium heat.
• Stir into the saucepan the chopped garlic, chopped onion, hot peppers, green peppers, tomatoes and carrot, and saute for 5 minutes.
• Add in the garlic powder and ground cumin to the saucepan, and saute mixture for another 3 – 5 minutes or until vegetables have just become tender.
• Stir the saucepan contents into the soup, and simmer the entire mixture for another 15 minutes or until the lentils are cooked to your taste.  Add in additional salt or pepper as necessary (if the soup tastes under-flavored, adding a modest amount of salt can really bring out the flavors).
• Remove soup from heat and serve immediately.  Adding homemade croutons or crushed tortilla chips helps make this soup into a filling main course.