Lentil Soup

Well, the first rain of the season in Los Angeles has been a doozy. I’m talking real rain people! I’ll admit, there’s something nice about coming home to a warm cozy house with dinner on the stove, rain dancing on the roof and my missus dancing on the ceiling but I’m thankful it doesn’t happen that often. You should see how these people drive in the rain! Not pretty. Apparently rain and electricity don’t mix over here either because as soon as it kicked off, our power decided to do the same….for hours. Good thing we had finished dinner or that would’ve blown! Lucky for us we had this delicious soup to dive into. Rain and a blast of cold wind (to be read sarcastically—it was all of 70° yesterday!) makes for perfect soup weather.

RECIPE:

Serves 6-8

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion – fine dice

4 garlic cloves – minced

2 tbsp fresh rosemary – chopped

2 tsp red curry powder

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 x 1lb bag lentils – rinsed

1 x 14 1/2 oz can organic diced tomatoes

1/4 cup sun-dried tomato paste

10 cups water (or veg/chicken broth)

1 lb cubed butternut squash

4 cups Swiss chard – de-stalked, chopped, washed

1/2 cup fresh parsley – chopped

2 tsp sea salt

freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat large soup pot for 1 minute on medium heat. Add in olive oil. Add onions and saute for 4-6 minutes or until translucent & soft, stirring–do not brown. Add in garlic, rosemary, curry powder, bay leaf and cayenne and mix through. Cook for 2 minutes and add lentils. Stir. Saute mixture together for 5 minutes until lentils are coated and toasted.

Next add in tomatoes, sun-dried paste, 1/2 the butternut squash and all the liquid (water 0r broth). Bring to boil and once boiling reduce to simmer, partially covered. Simmer for 25 minutes until lentils are tender. Stir in Swiss chard, parsley, the rest of the butternut squash and sea salt. Simmer for a few more minutes to wilt the chard and soften the squash. Taste the squash and when it’s nice ‘n’ tender you’re good to go. Finally, taste and season with S&P.

NOTE: We had a couple dried chili peppers lying around (gifts from our neighbors) that we threw in whole to see if they’d give off some heat. They certainly did, but lucky for us it was the perfect amount of kick. Do you dare?



All recipes are made with the finest quality farmers market whole foods, natural and non-processed ingredients as much as possible.