For Your Health: Lentil Soup
In this post of For Your Health, I want to share a recipe for a very filling, healthy, and diabetes-friendly recipe for my Lentil Soup. It is so good that I will make this all year long, not just in the winter.
Soup is my favorite food. I used to eat it all the time and when I stopped making a pot every five days, I started gaining weight. I’m going back to what worked for me and I hope you will cook along with me. I’m not a food blogger but I probably will be adding lots of my recipes here as I pursue Getting Clean 2019.
My vegetable garden has doubled this year compared with last year. If you live nearby, get on the Grocery Call list because when I go over to the beds to harvest there is always more than Mark and I can eat. Last year I texted my neighbors that I was harvesting and drove down the street with my trunk open so they could meet me at the curb and “shop” from my “trunk show”!
Lentil Soup
inspired by Mollie Katsen
- 3 cups of raw lentils (rinsed)
- 10 cups of a combination water and stock
- 2 tsp salt
Simmer this covered for 3-4 hours. You can simmer this and then shut off to overnight it and finish in the morning if you’re starting later than noon.
Sauté these in butter. You’ll want to sauté until the onions are clear.
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 cup minced celery
- 1 cup of carrots minced the same size as the celery
Add your lentils and onion sauté together and continue to simmer on really low heat, not even bubbling. About thirty minutes before you’re ready to eat add these:
- lots of black pepper
- 1# can stewed tomatoes, or 1-1/2 cups chopped, fresh tomatoes
- 2 Tablespoons of dry red wine
- 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice
- 1-1/2 Tablespoons of brown sugar (this is to offset the bitterness of tomato acid)
- 1 Tablespoon of wine vinegar
- 1# fresh spinach leaves without stems (you can use the baby spinach and avoid de-stemming)
I like to use any greens I happen to have on hand to replace the spinach. I recently learned that the leaves from all of my brassicas can be used, too! Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels … just tear the leaves off the plants and clean up the dirt, chop them into mouth-sized bites and throw them into anything you’re cooking. It triples the size of your vegetable dish, and tastes exactly like your vegetable.
Right when I’m serving this soup I love to add about a third cup of ricotta cheese, whole milk. And by the way, I like foods as close to nature as possible so you won’t find low fat or fat free anywhere in my house. You start messing around with nature and you’ll be consuming a boat-load of chemicals. All that stuff just causes inflammation.
