Red Lentil Soup

One of my favourite recipes is also one of the simplest and most proasically named. Naturally it involves lentils. The original was from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day and over the years I have honed the recipe done into simpler and simpler versions. Simple does not mean simplistic, after all. Like chess. Or this recipe.

Red Lentil Soup

1 1/2 cups red lentils

6 cups vegetable stock

5 garlic cloves

2 medium carrots (1 cup)

1 cup canned tomatoes or 1 chopped medium fresh tomato

1 small red or green bell pepper (1/2 cup)

1 1/2 cups choped onions

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons curry powder

couple of shakes of cinnamon

pinch of cayenne

2 tablespoons soy sauce or lemon juice

Put lentils, stock and garlic in a soup pot, cover and bring to high heat. Chop the vegetables and add to the pot. Bring to a boil, stir and reduce heat. Add the spices. Simmer for 15 minutes, or longer if lentils are not tender. Add the lemon juice or soy sauce. Let sit and blend. Puree, reheat and serve.

Serves 4-6.

You don't actually have to puree this, but I don't like the texture of the lentils if you don't. I guess you could cook the lentils seperately in, say, 3 cups of the stock and then transfer them back into the soup. I had an interesting experience pureeing this particular soup as it hiccoughed some soup out of the top. That's funny, I thought, I guess I didn't attach the lid right. So I tightened the lip and turned it on again. More soup sputtered out. Would that happen again? I wondered. This time the blender vomited up soup all over my kitchen as I tried to turn it off without getting a facefull of hot soup. I guess there's a moral there.