Red Lentils

My main goal in eating while I'm researching is to eat at least the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables every day, to reduce my desserts to weekly instead of daily, to reduce the amount of dairy and meat I consume and to change the type of caffeine I ingest or maybe ax it all together. Starting on Sunday I took out my daily mocha which was homemade using the Starbucks Mocha blend (40 calories in a serving), my expresso machine (negligible calories in the coffee beans) and 1% milk (130 calories). By taking out that daily treat, I'm saving myself 170 calories and one serving of dairy.

Yesterday, on my way home from walking the kids to school I stopped by a health food store that is across the street from our house. I bought a pound of lentils figuring I had enough vegetables here at home to figure out something to make with them. My goal had been to have a totally vegetarian meal but with the recipe that I used it didn't quite happen. This recipe is a Lentil Soup Crockpot recipe that I found online and tweaked some. Next time I make this I may just make it with water instead of the chicken stock I put in it and see how that tastes because I think it wouldn't make much of a difference and then I would have my vegetarian meal.

I am not going to post a picture because it just looks like orange mush and who wants to see that? Anyway, here is the recipe:

1 lb lentils (I used red)
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup onion
5 garlic cloves minced
2 big or 3 medium potatoes (peeled and chopped)
6 cups of chicken broth/stock (I ended up needing 7 cups, what I did was boiled 7 cups of water and put 4 tspns of chicken bouillon in it)
Then season how you like it. My husband has this seasoning called Tony Chachere's Spice N' Herbs Blend that he loves and I used that. Then at the end we ended up adding some salt. I try to be careful with salt because you can always make something saltier but you can't undo it!

The recipe I originally read called for a can of plum tomatoes and didn't say anything about potatoes but that didn't sound good me and I didn't have the canned tomatoes so I just swapped it out. I also think you could pretty much use any vegetable you would like. Next time I may do a couple of colored peppers and broccoli instead of the carrots and celery.

Get your crock pot out and after washing the lentils stick the lentils in the crock pot. Next put in the chicken broth along with your vegetables and seasonings. Cook on high for 3 hours and then low for another 2 to 3 hours. And you'll have a yummy, filling soup!