Lentil Soup on a Frigid Night

Look at me - posting two days in a row! It's a record! ...aaand you know it's a bad sign when two days is a record. Oh well. :)

Tonight I was musing aloud and wondering if I should make some curried split pea soup from VwaV for dinner when one of my housemates, B, suggested I use up her lentils and make lentil soup for both of us. Works for me! I threw together a soup from the limited ingredients we had in the house. See, the arctic tundra has come to Minnesota this week, with temperatures in the negatives and windchills making it feel like -30ish. So, needless to say, we're avoiding leaving the house for anything other than classes. That means no grocery runs this week (since we walk to the store). Luckily I stocked up on Sunday, anticipating this week of being practically house-bound. Brrr.

Anyway, on to the soup! I kept it simple and sauteed onions, garlic, and sliced baby carrots in a bit of EVOO (good gracious, did I just use that acronym?!) and then dumped that mixture into a big pot of about 4 cups of veggie broth. I used about a cup of lentils, and then I added some leftover fire roasted tomato chunks for good measure. I added a splash of balsamic vinegar, and spiced it with oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram, black pepper, and some cayenne pepper powder just because it was there. :P Oh yeah - I also added a potato, chopped into small pieces. I let it simmer until the lentils were soft and nearly all the liquid was absorbed/evaporated.

And then I devoured a large bowlful. It was surprisingly tasty, if slightly salty due to the veggie broth, which I made from a bouillon for availability/frugality reasons. But I was well pleased with it, and it was pretty much the perfect meal for a freezing cold winter night. :)