Week 2: Brown Lentils

Another week, another legume!  I placed a huge order this past week for a variety of various legumes, but for now I am sticking with what was already in my pantry / recipes I've made for years.  Which leads us to brown lentils and Spinach Lentil Soup.  I thought I originally got this recipe from a Weight Watchers cookbook ~10-15 years ago.  I went through all of my Weight Watchers cookbooks and none of the recipes resembled this one.  And by resembled...this recipe has morphed, drastically, over the years.  Below is it's current iteration... 

Spinach Lentil Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 pound brown lentils, sorted and rinsed
• 1-2 teaspoons oil
• 1 Tablespoon cumin seeds
• 1 large red onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 8-12 cloves garlic, minced
• 4-10 dried hot peppers (to taste)
• 2 large tomatoes, diced
• 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
• 4-5 cups spinach, raw, washed, drained & chopped

Procedure:

1. Place sorted and rinsed lentils in large pot and cover with water.
2. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
3. Lower heat and simmer, partially covered, until lentils are tender (~25-35 minutes). If too much water cooks out, add more.  Have lentils a little "soupy"/excess water prior to adding the tomato/onion mixture.
4. While lentils are simmering, warm oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.
5. Add cumin seeds and sizzle until fragrant, 20-30 seconds.
6. Add the thinly sliced onion and minced garlic and stir-fry until golden brown, 3-4 minutes.
7. Stir in the tomatoes, hot peppers, salt and 1 cup of water.  Bring to a boil. Simmer 3-5 minutes.
8. Once the tomato/onion mixture has simmered, pour into the pot of lentils, simmering the combined mixture, stirring occasionally, until the flavors have blended (~15 minutes).
9. Stir in spinach just before serving.

Notes:

• It is delicious served over rice.  
• Cornbread is another delightful accompaniment.

Hopefully by next week my order of legumes will have arrived and I'll try something I've never tried before.  If I get my act together, I'll also try to take pictures of the order, once it arrives!  Until then, have a great week!