A Better Bag of Groceries

Lentil Soup

Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 07:12 AM

Not to stress you out, but Christmas Eve is only two weeks from today.  And Hanukkah starts tomorrow night!  This coming weekend is our busiest of the holiday season, with basketball starting, 2 Christmas pageant rehearsals, tickets to the ballet, a neighbhorhood cocktail party, church & church school, and a Hanukkah get-together with friends Sunday evening.  Whew!  So, I’m sticking to my plan of making quick, easy, healthy and high-yield recipes to get us from here to January in one piece.  One same-sized piece.

One of my Go To Recipes every December is Lentil Soup.  I credit this recipe to my sister, Pilates Julie.  She’s been making this for years.  Interestingly, my 4 year old daughter loves to make Lentil Soup with me.  I’m not sure why.  Lentils are kind of gray and boring.  A couple of weeks ago, my daughter had to answer the question, “What makes you happy?” in her ballet class.  Her answer was “making Lentil Soup with my mom.”  Awwwwwww!  So, of course, we had to go home and make Lentil Soup. 

I made it again this week since it’s a great lunch when an evening cocktail party is on the agenda. 

Lentil Soup

Olive Oil

3 cloves garlic, minced (I do this with my Pampered Chef garlic press, which is one of 3 items I would want with me if stranded on a desert island)

Ham stock or 8 cups vegetable broth

Diced ham

1 bag dried lentils, washed and inspected for pebbles

5 carrots, peeled and sliced

4 celery stalks, chopped

1 onion, chopped

Pinch of Kosher salt

Pinch of black pepper

1 bay leaf

Heat a Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add olive oil and garlic.  Cook until garlic just starts to brown.  Add broth, onion, bay leaf and lentils; reduce heat to low and simmer.  When lentils begin to soften, add ham, carrots, celery, salt & pepper.  Simmer until vegetables are tender.  Add additional spices as you like.

Pilates Julie makes her stock with a ham bone and leftover ham from holiday dinners.  When we don’t have one, we make it with canned vegetable broth and a small ham steak.

My daughter loves everything about this recipe, with the exception of the smell of the chopped onion.  Her favorite part is washing the lentils.

So how does Lentil Soup Score?

Lentils get a great NuVal score:  94!  And the vegetables are all incredible, of course.

• Celery: 96
• Onion: 93
• Carrots: 99

Ham is not a superstar in the meat department.  A Plumrose Boneless Ham Steak scores a 24.  You could make this without meat.  But the ham does add some flavor and my daughter insists that we keep it in.  She likes eating little cubes of ham while we cook.  As for the Vegetable Broth, we have not scored it yet.  NuVal is scoring ALL products in the grocery stores of our retailer partners.  That is different from any other nutritional scoring system out there – and it takes time.

But making Lentil Soup does not take time.  Especially if you teach your 4-year-old how to do the lentil-rinsing part for you.  The key to a Sane Mommy is Child Labor - teach them to do some chores (before they get too old and start to complain) and they will think it’s fun Mommy and Me time.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll all get through the next two weeks in a good frame of mind, body and spirit.  Cheers!

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