Meatless Monday: Red Lentil Soup

We have a new favorite meal in our house.

It has kept us cozy during this ridiculously cold spring, and it costs only a few bucks for the whole meal. I'm not much of a recipe sharer, because I'm not much of a cook, but here's my friend Jenn's MIL's recipe for Red Lentil Soup. I hope you'll find it a healthy, delicious addition to your repertoire. Recipe can be halved, but I make the whole thing, because, yum.

Ingredients:

2 cups red lentils (rinsed)
2 onions, chopped
4 T tomato paste
2 med potatoes, sliced or shredded w/peeler
2 carrots, shredded w/peeler
1/2 cup uncooked white rice
water

Steps:

1. Bring 2 cups of red lentils to boil in water in medium pot. Boil until soft. There's usually some water still left in there. That's fine. Set aside
2. In LARGE pot, brown your chopped onions. (I use pre-chopped, frozen onions, and like to brown them very dark in a smidge of olive oil)
3. Add 4 T tomato paste to onions and cook a few minutes
4. Add 6 tall glasses of water to the paste and onions and bring to a boil.
5. Shred your potatoes and carrots w/ a potato peeler. Add to the water mixture and boil 5 min.
6. Drain your lentils
7. Add your lentils and 1/2 cup of rice to the boiling water.
8. Boil additional 15-20 min
9. Enjoy w/ generous dashes of salt and pepper and fresh lemon juice on top

This is a good weeknight dinner, b/c it's easy to keep these ingredients on hand.