After a couple of weeks of indulging myself with cocktails and Christmas baking, I find myself craving things like this green lentil soup for supper.
Like many young girls, I converted to vegetarianism in my teens. This wasn’t a straightforward thing to do in northern Canada in those days. The supermarkets had only recently started selling yogurt – tofu, hummus, and soy mince had yet to arrive. There were no veggie burgers, sausages or nut cutlets in the freezer section, and Quorn hadn’t been invented.
Undaunted, I bought myself a vegetarian cookbook called The Vegetarian Family: With recipes for a healthier life by Runa and Victor Zurbel – a husband and wife team of whole food enthusiasts and yoga converts – and started preparing vegetarian dishes.
While the book seems pretty dated now, it’s surprising how many recipes I still cook from it, including this lentil soup.
Green lentil soup
(serves 6)
- 1 1/2 cups lentils
- 6 cups water
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 2 Tb olive oil
- 1 Tb lemon juice
- 1 tsp dried tarragon
- Put the lentils in a colander and rinse under running water, then drain.
- Add the lentils to a large pot with the water. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam that appears on the surface.
- Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer the lentils until almost tender.
- Add the salt, celery, onion, carrots, oil, lemon juice and tarragon and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about fifteen more minutes.
Ten More Bites 
The Zurbels! At last – about time they made an appearance. They are ‘worthier than thou’ with annoyingly perfect children but their food is good!
Some of those recipes have definitely stood the test of time…
It looks good (surprisingly) dads night to cook tonight and he made split pea & ham soup-it was loved by all. Just kind of reminded me of the lentil soup- always look forward to what your cooking and really enjoy the site
Thanks, Wade! I love split pea soup too – I’ll have to make that soon…