Lentil Soup

Everyday Food‘s first cookbook, Great Food Fast, is quickly becoming my favorite cookbook, as every single recipe I’ve tried from it has ended up fabulous.  Their Sloppy Joes, which I tried earlier this year, are also great.  I had some leftover dried lentils that I wanted to use up before winter was over and it would be too hot to eat soup.  I used half of the package a while ago to make an average-tasting Crock Pot vegetarian lentil soup, which used a beef stock base and had onion, carrots and celery in along with the lentils.  It cooked all day, as Crock Pot recipes tend to do.  When it was done, the lentils had completely broken down and the soup was an odd shade of tan.  It tasted fine, though the texture (and especially the color) was rather suspect.  I didn’t want to make that same recipe again, so I found this recipe in my cookbook and thought it was rather unique, as lentil soups go.  It had bacon in it, which for me is always a selling point 🙂 and also had just enough tomato paste to make it a tomato stock base.  These interesting changes made me curious to try this recipe.

I don’t need to give the entire recipe here (honestly, you should just go and buy the book), but it is on page 263 and contains bacon, onion, carrots, garlic, tomato paste, lentils, thyme, chicken broth, and then a bit of red wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste at the end step.  It’s especially good because a small amount of the bacon grease is used to saute the onion and carrots (and I also threw in some celery because I had it left over from the chicken soup).  Once that’s in, the garlic is put in quickly and after it gets fragrant, tomato paste, lentils, thyme, and broth are all put in, and it simmers until the lentils are done.  Not broken down, but just until they are tender.  That’s another thing I like about it–the recipe doesn’t cook the heck out of the lentils.

I have to say this is the best soup I’ve made so far this year.  It’s completely delicious.  I would absolutely make this for others, and even if they didn’t like lentils they would like this.  I recommend it.