Lentil Soup or Pantry Soup

To give you an idea of how nutty Sydney weather has been last weekend I didn't want to cook inside the house because it was too hot and by Tuesday I was making lentil soup for lunch. Crazy right?

It was cool, though not cold  at lunchtime and yet by the afternoon warm enough for my husband and daughter to go down to Shelley Beach at Fairy Bower, Manly for an after-school snorkel.

So I decided to make this very simple Lentil Soup. It can also be called pantry soup because really most of these ingredients lurk in the kitchen cupboard all the time and can be easily substituted. I like this soup because it is high in fibre and low in carbohydrates. I don't eat a strict low-carb diet but I try to be aware of how many I eat and as a way of making sure I don't have loads of them. I find lunch which I tend to eat alone a great place to cut carbs and soups are a great way of doing it.

It's pretty simple - this was enough for 4 serves of soup. So I checked the carbs on the tins I used. And each serve comes to less than 7g of carbs which is pretty good.

lentil soup
1 onion diced (I used a red onion because I had one)
2 bacon rashers chopped (omit if you want it vegetarian)
2 celery stalks diced
3 1 carrot diced
5 basil leaves chopped
1 garlic clove crushed
2 tablespoons tomato paste (I didn't have this so i used 1/2 cup passata)
1 tin of brown lentils (drained and rinsed)
1 tin chopped tomato
olive oil for cooking
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese to serve

1. Heat olive oil in sauce pan then add bacon, onion, garlic, celery, basil and carrot and cook over a low heat until onion softens.
2. Add tomato paste and brown off to release flavour.
3. Then add lentils, tomato and 1 1/2 tins of water (use lentil tin to measure).
4. Cook 20-30 minutes. Season to taste.
5. Serve in bowls topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

Summer lentil salad

In summer, just like everyone else, we eat lots of salads. This is a simple lentil salad that is a twist on tabbouli. I had planned to make that but inexplicably I was out of burghul. It's funny that because burghul and polenta and cous cous seem to be strange items that either multiply or vanish from my pantry -in this case it was vanish.

Anyway this recipe uses, herbs, tomato and spring onions just like tabbouli but tinned brown lentils instead of burghul (cracked wheat) which made it super quick as I didn't need to waste time waiting for the burgul to soak. The addition of lentils makes it a good option for adding extra fibre to the diet, also a good thing as we start the New Year with all the usual resolutions for healthy eating.

We had ours with fish done on the bbq but this would be nice with grilled chicken or a nice lamb chop as well.

Summer Lentil Salad
1 tin brown lentils, drained and rinsed
8 cherry tomatoes quartered (you could easily dice a whole tomato)
3 spring onions sliced
1/4 cup of baby spinach leaves, shredded
100g feta crumbled
juice of 1/4 lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and chill till ready to serve. Serves 4.