Chilly weather makes me think of soup!

Last week as the temperatures dropped down, giving me a reason to don gloves and my winter coat as I headed off in the morning, I dreamed of soup.  I had lentils in my pantry and vegetables in the crisper.  I have a usual lentil soup recipe but I wanted to try something different.

I pulled down  Soup; A way of life by Barbara Kafka, one I don't use often even though I love soup.  

I found a delicious soup and I had most of the ingredients on hand. 

Lentil Soup

(adapted)

1 T olive oil

2 strips of bacon, sliced into small pieces

3 large stalks of celery, chopped

3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into small chunks

1 small yellow onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, and minced

1 T cumin seeds, ground

1 1/2 tsp chili powder

3 cups vegetable stock (it called for beef but I still only ever have veg. on hand)

1 1/2 cup brown lentils, rinsed

1/2 cup coarsely chopped parsley

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Freshly ground black pepper

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil and bacon over medium high heat.  Stir in the celery, carrots, and onions and saute a little to soften.  Add garlic, cumin, and chili powder and stir to coat veggies.

Stir in the stock, 3 cups of water, and the lentils.  Bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer for 40 minutes, or until the lentils are soft.  

Remove from the heat. In a food processor, puree about half the lentils.  Stir the puree back into the pan, add the lemon juice, and black pepper.  Heat thoroughly.  Top each bowl with parsley sprigs.  Can be served with soar cream dollop.  Served with big chunky bread to dip.

The soup was delicious...for my husband and I.  The kids noticed the kick right away and Teenage Boy managed to finish his bowl using the bread to absorb the heat but Groovy Girl, even after stirring in several heaps of sour cream, still couldn't make it through.  She ate two more slices of the fresh bread to compensate.  

The recipe originally called for bacon rind with an explanation of what that was, but I had good, farm fresh bacon in my freezer so I used that instead which pleased the teenager a lot as he has come to believe that every meal should include meat.  So much for his vegetarian start to life.  He is very much in the growing stage though.  Hungry all the time.  

I made this one day and served it the next and so somehow completely skipped the blender part of this recipe.  Next time I will do it because I know it would add a nice thickness to the soup.  I also thought this would be wonderful over brown rice.

Now it is much warmer out and it may stay that way for the next couple of weeks but I'll be ready when it decides to get cold on me again.  

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.  Click on her link and find many other wonderful food-related posts.  I'm not going to think about soup though again until the weather takes another dive.