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