I got this recipe off of Sara Snow's show on Discovery Health; the first time I made it was for a friend after she had her baby. It was okay but it turned out better the second time. It's easy to over cook the veggies! This makes a LOT of soup. If you are only feeding, say, 3 people I would half it. It is by far my favorite comfort food. I just love it.

Ingredients:
1 quart chicken stock
1 quart water
2 cups red lentils – rinsed
1-2 T olive oil
2 strips of Kombu (sea vegetable, don't be grossed out-it is used mostly for it's sea salt and if you want you can 'fish' it out)
2 onions
3 cloves garlic
5 carrots
4 stalks celery
1/2 pound potatoes
1 rutabaga
2 zucchini
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
3 teaspoons salt

Pinch of each of the following:
Cumin
Bay leaf
Dried or fresh parsley
Oregano
Thyme

Instructions:

Bring first 5 ingredients to a boil and allow to cook for 45-60 minutes.

Chop together onions garlic cloves, carrots, celery, potatoes, rutabaga and zucchini.

Add vegetables into the pot.

Add 1 can diced tomatoes

Add salt, cumin, bay leaf, parsley, oregano and thyme

Serve piping hot with warmed bread.

Now to the pics of my creation :)

First you chop veggies, this took about 30 minutes, and a lot of questions and entertaining conversation from my son.


In the stock pot combine the first 5 ingredients, let them boil for 30min-hour depending on altitude. These are the ingredients


It will look like this:


When the lentils have cooked down add the veggies


Cook until the veggies are tender, serve with bread (I get a loaf from whole foods)

Enjoy!