Red Lentil, Chickpea & Chilli soup

With having to rein in our expenditure recently, I have been cooking more and more with the ingredients I already have in my store cupboards. Tuesday’s soup turned out better than I had imagined! I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food website, yet changed a few ingredients by adding more fresh produce! The recipe makes up to four good servings.

Red Lentil, Chickpea and Chilli Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• One red chilli sliced and de-seeded
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed and sliced
• 140g red split lentils
• 850ml vegetable stock or water ( used low salt vegetable stock)
• 400g can tomato, whole or chopped
• 400g carton chickpeas rinsed and drained

Method

• Heat a large saucepan and dry-fry the cumin seeds for 1 min, or until they start to jump around the pan and release their aromas.
• Add the oil, onion and chilli, and cook for 5 mins. Then add the garlic for another minute.
• Stir in the lentils, stock and tomatoes, and half the can of chickpeas then bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 mins until the lentils have softened.
• Whiz the soup with a stick blender or in a food processor until it is a rough purée, pour back into the pan and add the remaining chickpeas. Heat gently, season well and serve with crusty bread.

Saturday just gone, I made a vegetable frittata, but I will leave that recipe for another post.

What food creations have you been trying recently?

Christine x