Jessie's Winter Lentil Soup

Jessie’s Winter Lentil Soup

Ingredients:

• 4-8 leeks, white and light green parts only (enough for about 2-3 cups)
• 1 C tomatoes chopped (or 1 C diced drained tomatoes from a can)
• 2 T olive oil
• 6 cups chicken broth (I had 4 C real chicken broth from boiling chicken yesterday and the remaining two I made from chicken bullion - I added 2 C water and 2 t chicken bullion granules)
• 1 bunch Kale (can sub collard greens, but it’s not as good). I used about 3 cups chopped kale.
• 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into a ½ inch dice (about 2 cups worth)
• ½ cup red lentils (you can use other types of lentils as well)
• 1 TB thyme leaves (I used dry)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 12 fresh basil leaves (don't use dry! I used a bit more as I had more in the package I bought, I chopped about 1 C worth)
• 3/4 C milk
• Shredded parmesan cheese for topping

Directions:

-Heat the oil in the saucepan over medium heat

-Slice the leeks each in half lengthwise, then slice each half into ¼ inch half-moons (about 2-3 cups). Rinse with water and pat dry (come very dirty!)

-Chop tomatoes

-Add leeks and tomatoes to sauce pan and saute for 5 minutes or so until leeks are cooked.

-While cooking leeks and tomatoes, peel and cut sweet potatoes and chop kale: remove stems from kale, stack the leaves on top of each other, roll them, one cut length-wise in the middle, then chop

as small as you like. This method makes shopping them small (which I prefer) really fast and easy.

-Add chicken broth to saucepan and bring to boil.

-Stir in kale, sweet potatoes, lentils, thyme, salt, pepper, and chopped basil

-Simmer until the lentils and sweet potatoes are tender 10-30 minutes depending on the type of lentils you use. Add milk about 10 minutes before you serve.

-sprinkle with parmesan as desired.

Notes:

This recipe is from a friend of Amie's (Jessie, I'm assuming!). The directions I had weren't too clear so I just adapted and wrote here what I did last night for dinner. So Amie, feel free to pipe in and tell me what I may have done wrong! I also added milk, as I love how milk fills out the broth a bit. I was intimidated at first (kale and leeks?) but it was actually not too hard. I like to prep work in the mornings, so you could easily do all your chopping earlier and then merely just add to the saucepan for an easy meal! I love that all of these veggies are in season right now and are at my local farmer's market! It is filling and tasty and how can you not feel healthy feeding your kids a bowl full of veggies? The boys were suspicious at first with how it looks. Jeffrey said, "Even though it looks like garbage soup it tastes great!" (Sorry no pics, next time!). We had some crusty bread for a side and it was a nice meal for a chilly fall or winter day.