eat; red lentil and tomato soup

kashi.com

Seeing it's cold in the Northern Hemisphere of our wonderful world, I've decided to add this soup for those living here. I know it's bloody hot in the Southern Hemisphere, but I'm sure you guys will enjoy this soup when Melbourne has one of those cold summer days soon.

Tomato soup has definitely been a take it or leave it soup for me in the past. I grew up eating tomato, not drinking it! It wasn't until I tried this recipe that I became a fan of this humble soup. I made this once for a friend of mine, Julishka from Germany, who is an avid fan of tomato soup. She told us Australians that tomato soup shouldn't come from a can and I completely agree with her in terms of ready made canned soups, even though this recipe does call for a can of tomatoes!?! I am proud to announce that Julishka was so blown away with every mouthfull, that I had to email her the recipe as she was eating it, right then and there!!! There was no way she was going to leave my house without it!

So here it is and you will definitely blow away minds with this simple but super tasty recipe!

What you need;

1 large onion finely chopped

810g can of tomato, whole or chopped. (Remember what i said in my earlier post about canned tomato, if you can't get Annalisa brand, go organic only!) 

1 cup of washed red lentils

3 cups of vegetable stock

2 cloves of garlic

4 Tbl of olive oil

10 basil leaves, torn

salt and lots and lots of freshly cracked pepper

Heat the oil in a big saucepan. Once hot, add the chopped onions and cook until soft. Add the can of tomatoes, breaking them up slightly if using whole tomatoes.

Stir in the stock, add the red lentils and salt and pepper. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for about 30 mins or until the lentils are cooked. Add more water while cooking if need be.

When cooked, throw batches into a blender and blend away. At this stage, add the torn basil leaves and 2 cloves of garlic to one of the batches. Yes the garlic is uncooked but will bring out amazing flavours to this soup because of it!

As your batches are being blended, make sure you have a big bowl handy to pour the soup into. Once all complete, you can return it to the stovetop in the saucepan to re heat.

This soup is AMAZING served with an open grilled cheese sandwich. I've served it with vegan cheese above, thats why it looks a bit wrong (vegan cheese doesn't grill too well). You can also freeze the the left over soup.

Buon Appetito!!!