Lentil and Carrot Soup

Our family loves soup!  We have it most weekdays for our lunch.  Phil heats his up in the morning and puts it in a thermos to have for his lunch.  The rest of us heat it up at lunchtime and enjoy sitting around the table eating it with a little bread, toast or a pitta. 

Soup can be very nutritious and inexpensive and it’s very easy to make in large quantities ahead of time and then freeze in individual portion sizes.  Cooking for the freezer is great…it doesn’t take much more time to cook up 3 or 4 times the recipe than it would for just one.  And this way you have the soup handy when the kids are hungry, your energy levels are low, or you just don’t know what you should have.

This soup is definitely one of our family favourites and we’d like to share it with you!

Gather the ingredients for your Lentil and Carrot Soup:

• 6 tsp veg oil
• 3 onions, finely chopped
• 6 sticks celery, finely chopped
• 6 carrots, coarsely grated (or finely chopped)
• 6 oz (165gr) split red lentils (I add a little -or a lot-more)
• 3 tsp ground cumin (don’t be too fussy with the herbs, cumin seeds taste great too!
• )
• 3 tsp ground or leaf coriander
• 4.5 pints (2.5litres) veg stock
• pepper to taste

How to make your lentil and carrot soup:

 1)                 Put the oil, onion, and celery (and carrot if sliced) into a pot and cook until soft.

2)                 Add carrots (if grated), etc and mix.  

If you are short on time, or a little lazy you can just throw everything in at once and not cook ahead!

3)                 Cover to boil, then simmer 15-20min or until soft. 

As you can see, it turns out a litttle different each time, which is one of the brilliant things about homemade meals!  You never grow tired of them!   

This is a very easy-going recipe and you can adjust it according to what you have in the kitchen.  As you can see from one ot the photos, I had a little red onion that needed to be used, so in it went. Don’t know what to do with celery leaves?  Throw them in as well!

This recipe can be made smaller if you do not want to make such a large quantity!

Do you enjoy soups?  Try Hot and Sour!  

Let me know how it goes for you or share a favourite recipe of yours!