Who knew you were so tasty?

T is out of town the next few days and I’m trying to eat healthy and to not use this as an excuse to nom everything my little heart wants, so I made this lentil soup this afternoon. I made it in such a quantity that I expect to eat on it for the next few days.

I remember eating a lot of lentils growing up, they were a regular staple in our house. When I was very young I went through all sorts of antics to avoid eating them: clandestine napkins and clever bathroom escapes. At some point my taste at least matured to the point that lentils were not so much a malignant dish as a rather tolerable, if uninspiring one. In fact, I believe I promptly forgot about lentils once I moved out of my parents’ house.

But here I am suddenly inspired to purchase a bag of dry brown lentils and cook them up, but with a little flair.

There’s something a so satisfying about throwing things into a boiling pot.

Ingredients:

1/2 bag of lentils
1 box of happy free range chicken broth, low sodium
1 can of diced tomatoes and juice
2 for real tomatoes, diced
2 red onions, chopped or otherwise pleasantly mangled (yes, my taste has evolved to the point that I rather love onions, go figure!)

So I got all those things going together in a boiling pot, adding the lentils themselves once the broth and veggies were nice and boil-y. Then I broke out my spices, and this is where I started having fun:

Lentil spice line-up, aren’t they so pretty?

Salt
Black Pepper
Thyme
Garlic
Ginger
Brown sugar (just a bit)
Cinnamon (just a teeny-tiny bit)
Sriracha sauce, watch out!

In the process of cooking all this, I was obliged to add water a few times and re-season more than once, which was actually a good thing because I went a little crazy with the Sriracha on the first application, but it balanced out nicely by the end of cooking. I’m quite fond of the ginger in this as it gives it a more complex flavor than I think with purely savory seasonings. I don’t know if the cinnamon did that much, but I like to think it added a little something.

I’ve watched enough Iron Chef to know the need for excellent plating, so here I’ve used a little garnish I trimmed from my parsley plant :)

Anyway, it was a nice wholesome lunch, and now I’m really wanting a nap.

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