Sunday, January 20, 2008

Lentil and Sausage Soup

I had this soup recently at an Italian restaurant and loved it! I was thrilled to find this recipe and to be able to adapt it for our taste.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours
Ready in: 3 hours 15 minutes
Yields: 10 servings
Cost: approx. $4.75 (without pasta)

1/2 pound sweet Italian sausage ($1.75)
1 large onion, chopped ($.50)
1 stalk celery, chopped finely ($.10)
1 Tablespoon garlic chopped
16 ounces red lentils rinsed ($1.50)
1 carrot shredded ($.10)
14 cups water
4 Tablespoon chicken soup stock base ($.25)
1 small can diced tomatoes ($.50)
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
2 Bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1. Brown sausage in large pot. Add onion, celery and garlic. Saute. Stir in lentils, carrot, water, soup base, and tomatoes. Add all other seasonings. Bring to boil and reduce heat. Cover and summer for 2 /12 to 3 hours.
2. Add 1/2 pound of pasta if desired and cook 15-20 minutes longer.

This could be cooled and frozen in a zip lock. Unthaw at room temperature and reheat.

The results are in...

5 thumbs up. 3 neither up or down. 1 thumb down.

I really should work on presentation, I know.

5 comments:

Cindy-Still His Girl said...

I'm so excited you're doing this! You've just turned into quite the little blogging queen! I love it! And I love you. And I'm so incredibly thankful for you. I have the photo you gave me for Christmas by my kitchen sink where I can see it all the time. I'm thinking maybe I need to move it by the computer. (I'm spending more time here than in the kitchen, it seems!!)

Do I like lentils? What are they exactly? My friend Gayle is doing a bargain food-type blog, too, and she had a lentil soup this week!

Sarah said...

Mmm this sounds good. I haven't used lentils since I was making Zeke's baby food. We made a lentil, sausage, sweet potato, and carrot mixture that was so tasty. The recipe was from a baby food book, but we all ate it.

Unknown said...

Where do you get your soup stock base? Do you make your own? Rog was just saying he wanted me to make split pea soup. Is this like that? I've never made either, so I'm kinda ignorant.

Heather L. said...

We had this tonight and it was SO good -- we'll definately be having this in the future! Thanks!

Nicki said...

I just made this for dinner tonight as a last ditch effort to find the lentil love...and while I may not have found the *love* I definitely found the *like*. This was a really good soup! Thanks for sharing it!