VenanMoFo Day 7 - It's Soup Weather!

And with the cool weather comes a new recipe from the official Rice Diet web site:

Turkish Lentil Tomato Soup

Ingredients:

* 2 large onions, medium diced
* 2 large carrots, medium diced
* 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
* 2 teaspoons ground cumin
* 2 teaspoons ground coriander
* 2 teaspoons ground fenugreek
* 2 large tomatoes, cored and chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
* 1 cup red lentils (soaked overnight)
* 5 cups salt free, vegetable stock
* 1/4 cup fresh dill
* 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:

Heat oil in a medium sauté pan. Add onions and carrots and sauté until
tender. Add garlic and the remaining seasonings except the dill. Add
tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes. Add lentils and vegetable stock.
Cover and cook on low heat until lentils are soft, approximately 30
minutes. Remove from heat and place mixture into a blender or food
processor. Blend until smooth. Stir in half of the dill. Serve hot.
Garnish with remaining dill.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 6 servings; serving size 1 cup.

Each serving contains approximately: Calories: 197 (5% from fat);
Protein: 11 g; Fat: 3.1 g; Carbohydrate: 23.3 g; Cholesterol: 0; Sodium:
37.1 mg.


http://www.ricedietprogram.com/o_nut_kitchen_tomatolentil_soup.php
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I've never soaked red lentils - or *any* lentils - overnight like other
beans or legumes. They're so small and soft they'll just turn to mush
before you can even rinse them off the next morning.

Also, when blending, I always use one of those immersion blenders and do
it right in the pot. Much neater and safer than ladling hot soup back
and forth. And unless you have a gigantic food processor, I wouldn't use
one of those to blend. Remember that the center column, the one that
goes over the post on the processor itself, is only about half the
height of the container, so if you put this entire recipe in a 11 cup
food processor whose fill line is about the 4-cup level, a lot of it
will spill out the center hole onto the machinery. Stick with a blender.

I'll be making this soup today. I have no idea what fenugreek is other
than an herb that I don't have in my spice cabinet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenugreek
so I'll be leaving it out. I'll also use a can of no salt added tomatoes
instead of fresh, as we've had lousy fresh produce in this area for ages
and I'm not about to spend $3/lb on 2 tasteless tomatoes when I can buy
a can of diced for under a dollar. Of course, I'll omit the oil and sauté in a bit of water.