Italian Lentil Soup Recipe For Warming Winter Meals

When the cold wind at night and takes a sip of frost chills the air there is nothing better than a bowl of soup ready to go home and just need to be heated to a recovery meal that warms you through it .

The great thing about soups is that they are easy to do is double or triple, so on weekends you can cook a big pot and some soup for lunch, before the cold for the rest of mid-week dinners. A good wintersoup will also improve the taste of the track and my favorite lentil soup in Italian is one of those. Two or three days after the make, the flavor has developed into a strong but soft richness that is perfect and has nothing more enjoyable than a crust of bread in a satisfying and nutritious meal.

There is nothing special in this soup, its origins are the kitchens of rural house in Italy, where the good ingredients and do not need to mess with them. If you have a dedicated foodie and you can get your hands on some lentils from Piano Grande in the Apennines in Italy, these are simply the best, but any breed of small brown lentils work well here.

Lentil Soup Recipe

1 medium onion
2 carrots
2 stalks of celery
3 tablespoons olive oil
½ tin tomatoes with their juice
1 ½ cups brown lentils, rinsed and checked for bits
1 l of broth or water
Salt and pepper

> Chop the carrot, onion and celery finely. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the vegetables made until soft. Add tomatoes and cook over medium heat with the lid until all the liquid has evaporated and sauce has a thick consistency. Season with salt and pepper. Mix the lentils and cook, stirring one minute before adding the broth or water. This soup is tasty enough to ensure water use, but if you happen to have some ham stockin the freezer left over from the Christmas gammon was a whole new dimension to the soup. Boil about 40 minutes until the lentils are tender. The cooking time depends on the variety of lentils, so you can check after 30 minutes. Add more water if the soup is too thick as the lentils absorb the water. Serve with crusty bread and butter and maybe a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top.

This is good enough for 4-6 servings, but you can easilydouble the amounts and freeze half for another day. Or if the soup two days in a row and you want to vary a bit 'on the second day to add more water and once it has warmed up throwing in a few handfuls of a little' pasta to cook in the broth. The pasta will take the flavor of the soup and make a meal. You never know, even children who claim to be anything like as fit as a lentil soup might be tempted to find that pasta and lentilsactually pretty good after all!

Copyright 2008 Kit Heath Cock

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