Mid Week Spicy Lentil Soup

I kinda threw this together, I know, I hate people that say that but I struggle to remember to write recipes and take photos as I cook, it’s the hardest thing about doing this blog, but for you, I did- and hopefully it turned out just as well as if I wasn’t thinking about it. I couldn’t legitimately call this dhal as I’m not a curry culinary so it’s more of a curried lentil soup as the name obviously suggests.  It’s the perfect winter warmer when you’re feeling like a bit of healthy spice to fill your tum.  It takes about an hour from cutting to serving, depending on how quick you are with a knife.  

 

The Spices – all ground in a mortar and pestle: 

1 teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds 

1 teaspoon of coriander seeds 

1 teaspoon of chilli flakes 

3 teaspoons of cumin 

2 teaspoons of curry powder 

2 teaspoons of garam masala 

The Rest:

1 tablespoon of olive oil 

1 red capsicum (pepper) finely diced 

½ zucchini (courgette) cut into chunky quarters  

1 purple carrot (what you never seen a purple carrot before?! Me neither till now)

1 potato (cubed, I peeled mine too but that’s just a preference thing) 

¼ pumpkin (cubed) 

1 brown onion (finely diced) 

1 cup of lentils verts  

2 cloves of garlic (crushed) 

2 cans of crushed or whole tomato 

750ml water 

1 vegetable stock cube 

2 tablespoons of tomato paste 

Splash in the olive oil and add the onion, garlic and red pepper along with all the spices to nicely give them a bit of a toasty flavour.  

Add EVERYTHING ELSE… yup it’s just that easy. I usually go in this order canned tomato, rest of the veg, water, stock cube then lentils but as long as you put things in relatively quickly one after the other it really shouldn’t matter what order they go in. Bring it all to the boil then gently let it simmer with the lid on stirring it occasionally. If you have some curry leaves about 6 would go just perfectly in this dish but I didn’t have any to hand.  

For this recipe I added the water as I went (250ml at a time) letting the flavour reduce and decided on the tomato paste and last bit of water  at the very end just to get the consistency I wanted but still having that rich flavour.  

This makes around 5 hearty servings, is relatively quick, easy, cheap and healthy, what more could you want?!