Recipe: Tomato and Red Lentil Soup

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a brilliant Christmas and has had a good start to the New Year. One of my resolutions this year is to write the blog more - yes, the same resolution I had last year... hopefully my guilty feeling of not doing so last year will spur me on this year. So I just returned from a week away skiing - with a day to spare before uni begins once again. So far during this spare day the following have been completed; two massive loads of washing, setting up my new iMac (christmas pressie to myself), a massive food shop, cleaned and tidied my room, uploaded photos from the holiday and dinner made. Still to do includes writing my elective protocol and watching Sherlock.

This recipe is for a hearty and warming soup. It is so easy to make, cheap and delicious.

Estimated cost per portion: £0.42
Estimated calories per portion: 256

Ingredients:

• 6 medium tomatoes
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 medium brown onion
• 150g red lentils
• 2 tsp vegetable stock
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp half-fat crème fraîche (optional)
• 1/2 tsp crushed chillies
• Small handful of fresh basil leaves
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp sea salt flakes
• 1/4 tsp garam masala
• 1 litre (4 cups) boiling water

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190ºc. Roughly chop the tomatoes and place them in an oven dish with the whole garlic cloves, basil leaves, pepper, salt, crushed chillies and 2 tbsp of the olive oil. Roast in the oven for 30 mins.
2. Once the tomatoes are roasted add the remaining olive oil to a large pan and put on a medium heat. Dice the onion and fry in the oil until translucent - then add the tomatoes from the roasting pan. Make sure that you get all the juices, garlic and basil. Turn the heat down low and mix together.
3. Add the lentils, stock, garam masala and boiling water. Simmer for 20-30 mins or until the lentils are cooked. 
4. Once the lentils are cooked use a stick blender to blend the soup until smooth but with texture. Add the crème fraîche and a little extra olive oil if wanted.

Tomatoes, garlic, basil and oil before roasting

Tomatoes, garlic, basil and oil after roasting

L xx