Red Lentil Soup

*I decided to make this one cold snowy Sunday because it looked easy and I had all the ingredients at hand. It’s simple. It’s delicious.

2 tbsp EVOO

2 cups chopped onions (personally speaking this is too much for me)

3 cloves garlic

1 tsp ground cumin (I ended up adding, to taste, about a 1/4 tsp more)

1 tsp ground coriander (same as the cumin)

8 cups Veggie stock

1 3/4 cups dried red lentils

2 carrots finely chopped

1/2 cup coarsely chopped celery leaves (I left this ingredient out. I detest celery)

pinch of red pepper flakes (make that several pinches for me)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

- Heat oil in saucepan and saute onions until translucent, add garlic, add cumin and coriander and keep on heat stirring for approx 30 seconds

- Stir in 6 cups of stock, the lentils, carrots, celery leaves (if using), and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat.

- Cover and simmer, stirring every once in a while, until lentils are tender (plan for 30 minutes or so)

- Add remaining stock and this where I did a little blending with a hand blender because I wanted a smoother soup. It was the RIGHT thing to do. It was pure velvety, spicy goodness.

- Add lemon juice and season to taste. (you can skip lemon as I tried it and it’s delish without too!)

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Roasted Butternut Squash Soup (with toasted walnuts) –> we used pecans….

1 butternut squash, quartered lengthwise and seeded

1 large yellow onion (prefer the sweet ones)

2 carrots, halved horizontally

Olive oil for brushing over the veggies

1 whole garlic bulb

3 cups Vegetable stock

1 tsp curry powder

1/4 cup dry sherry (we had to omit this due to fact we had NONE!)

1 tbsp packed light brown sugar

pepper to taste

2 tsps minced fresh oregano or 1/2 tsp dried

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup milk or half and half (we cut the calories and used milk)

salt to taste

How to prepare:

-Preheat Oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with foil

-Place squash segments skin side up, onion and carrots on foil. Brush all surfaces with olive oil.

-Remove papery skin from garlic bulb, trim stem, cut 1/4inch of bulb to expose the cloves – but leave them intact- brush with oil and wrap in foil. Place alongside the veggies.

-Roast in oven for about 40 minutes or until VERY tender. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

-Squeeze the garlic cloves out of the bulb and scrape the flesh from the squash.

-Add equal amounts of roasted vegs/garlic and stock to blender and puree until smooth (this may take several batches to get right consistency. Of course use a food processor if you have….we don’t)

-Heat 1 tbsp of oil in saucepan and add curry powder; stir for about 30 seconds. Pour pureed soup into the pan and stir in any remaining stock, sherry (if you use), brown sugar, pepper, oregano and cinnamon. Cover and simmer, stirring every once in awhile for about 10-15 minutes.

-Add the milk and stir until heated through. (may need to use hand processor at this point if you want smoother! We did….)

-Garnish with walnuts. The actual recipe calls for a garnish with creme fraiche but we’re saving the calories…

Let this sit overnight and holy man IT IS GOOOOOOD.