lentil soup

Ahoy! It's a frog-strangler out there and has been for the last few days. Kind of fitting, actually, that I get some fear-of-God New England weather as a sendoff, so that I can spend my ersatz "fall" drinking tea and eating soup. Up in NH, I made some lentil soup... loosely based on a Better Homes and Gardens recipe Miles' grandmother had clipped and stashed in a pile many, many moons ago. Side note: his grandmother also clipped all the newspaper articles about Scrabbles' invention in in the 50s and has them stashed in the Scrabble set. Grandparents' houses are the best, whether they are yours or not. Side note to the side note: Inventor of Scrabbles was Mr. Butts. Haha, Butts!

Anyway, this soup is pretty tasty; probably the best lentil soup I have ever made. To be fair, though, the last time I tried to make lentil soup half the container of chipotle chile powder spilled and despite my best attempts to salvage it, the soup was inedible. The time before that I think I got bored and made Shira G. finish it. I am such a good roommate. But this soup got pretty high acclaim so try it out.


2 cups lentils
6 cups water
a bunch of carrots, chopped
a few stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 an onion
a large can (1 lb) of crushed/diced tomatoes (or just crush them yourself, whatevs)
salt, pepper, plenty of rosemary


--Cook the lentils with the celery, onion and carrots in the water. First boil, then simmer for about 35 minutes.
--Once the lentils are close to done, add the rosemary, salt and pepper to your liking. Don't skimp on the rosemary!
--Now add the tomatoes, let them cook for about 15 minutes; simmer until the soup is a consistency that makes you happy.

NB: Like the pasta, this makes a bumload of soup... 6 bowls or so. So halve it if you don't want leftovers for lunch.