Red Lentil and Tomato Soup

Red lentil and tomato soup is one of my husband’s favorite soups. I like to change it a little when I make it and this time I pureed the soup to create a smooth texture and added a little fennel seed for southern Italian flavor. This is a very easy soup that reheats well. It is also filling due to the beans. Here is what I made tonight.

Red Lentil and Tomato Soup
Makes 8 servings of approximately 2 cups each

Ingredients:

1 onion, peeled and diced
2 carrots, scrubbed and diced fine
3 stalks celery, scrubbed and diced fine
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
½ cup water
28 ounces of canned tomato sauce
14 ounces of canned diced tomato
1 pound red lentil, picked through
3 cups of water, or what is necessary to cook the beans and not scorch the soup
1 teaspoon fennel seed
salt and pepper, to taste
reduced fat tofu sour cream, for garnish - optional
2 tablespoons diced fresh zucchini, for garnish - optional

Directions:

Water sauté the onion, carrots, celery and garlic until soft. Add the tomato sauce, diced tomato, red lentils, water, and fennel seed and cook until the lentils are soft (about 30 minutes). You may need to add a little extra water as the soup cooks and the lentils absorb the cooking liquid.

Place the soup in your blender and puree until smooth. I had to do this in three batches in the blender. Return the soup to the cooking pot and keep warm until needed.

Before serving taste the soup for seasonings and add salt and pepper to your taste. Finish the soup with tofu sour cream and a little diced fresh zucchini if using. Serve hot.

Nutritional Information (includes optional ingredients):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 249.58
Calories From Fat (6%) - 14.76

Total Fat - 1.76g
Saturated Fat - 0.28g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 628.74mg
Potassium - 887.74mg
Total Carbohydrates - 45.25g
Fiber - 9.29g
Sugar - 7.31g
Protein - 16.63g

Nutritional numbers assume ¼ tablespoon of reduced fat tofu sour cream on each serving.

Comments:

Everyone enjoyed this tonight, including my parents (the omnivores), which was surprising. Their diet is so unhealthy (in my opinion) when they are not eating with us I am always amazed when they enjoy my healthy food. The texture of this soup is very smooth and creamy, without the fat.

Each serving of this soup contains approximately 3,875IU of vitamin A, 75mg of calcium, 140mcg of folate, 225mg of phosphorus, 70mg of magnesium, and 5mcg of selenium. Not too bad for a bowl of soup.

Unrelated Notes:

It is still snowing here and it appears that we got 24 inches at our house based on the snow sitting on top the trash cans. The weathermen as so prone to panic here I didn’t believe the storm was going to be this bad. Everything is covered with snow and it looks beautiful outside. It doesn’t look like we will be going anywhere tomorrow and possibly not on Monday either. As it turns out it was good thing we went to Costco on Friday.

My porky seitan experiment worked well today. I will be posting that recipe soon. First I need to see if I took a decent picture of the seitan. If not that recipe may go up tomorrow.

Tonight for dinner we had the porky seitan with agave sweetened BBQ sauce and a green salad with raw cashew dressing with blackberries, blueberries and sliced almonds. It was a reasonably healthy meal that we all enjoyed.