Today was a Monday

A very Monday-ish Monday in fact.

Too hectic, too much stress, and just blah. Blah, blah, blah.

So I decided to go with something a little different for today's post. A recipe in fact. For comfort food.

Not the the incredibly deslish but incredibly unhealthy kind, but a soup that is super tasty and filled with all things healthy (minus a few teaspoons here and there).

It's curry lentil soup and it's seriously the best. One of my coworkers made it for me when I was recovering from surgery a few years back and I'll admit, I was doubtful at first. I'm not a big fan of spicy, so the curry part had me nervous (it's not a spicy soup), and I don't know that I had ever eaten lentils at that point, so I was fully prepared to hate it.

But I didn't. I loved it so much I got the recipe, and now I'll share it with you, complete with some tips and adaptations I've made along the way.


Curry Lentil soup

2 large onions
1/4 c. olive oil
4 cloves garlic minced
6 ribs chopped celery (2 1/2 cups)
3 carrots chopped (1 1/4 cups)
1 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. thyme
5 c. water
5 c. chicken broth
2 bay leaves
2 tsp. dark brown sugar or molassas
2 TBSP ketchup
3 c. coarsely chopped plum tomatoes
2 c. lentils, picked over and rinsed
1/2 c. dry sherry

Cook onions in olive oil until soft.
Add garlic, celery, carrots and cook 10-15 min. or until softened.
Add everything else.
Simmer 2 hours or until lentils are tender.

Yes, it's a lot of chopping, but once you knock that out it's just dumping everything in a giant pot and letting it cook. Now, for my tips:

• I usually add some extra chicken broth, as the liquid tends to cook off on me quicker than the lentils are ready. 
• Once I forgot to get tomatoes, so I added 3/4 of a jar of chunky tomato sauce instead. It still tasted yummy. 
• Once you refrigerate it it stops looking like soup and looks more like stew/a giant container of cooked veggies and lentils. Don't worry, when you reheat it the veggies let go of the liquid and it returns to being soup.
• This recipe makes a lot. I freeze at least half in single serving bowls so I can grab it for easy lunches when I need to. 

Let me know if you try it out - I hope you will!