Once in a while I have to give one of my old (tried and true) recipes a new twist to see what I can come up with. It’s one of my favorite pastimes, which I realize is totally pathetic. Is that something you do too, or do you stick with recipes as you know them? I’m just always messing with them, with varying results. 

This time I took my basic lentil soup recipe—one that I think even my grandmother made—and revved it up with a touch of curry and cumin and turned it into a hearty soup that could easily pass for a stew. I absolutely love how it turned out: thick, fragrant and very satisfying. I’m using chicken broth but you can easily replace that with just water and salt turning this into a vegetarian/vegan recipe in the blink of an eye. 

Ingredients: 

4 cups water
2 chicken bouillon cubes
2 medium potatoes
1 can diced tomatoes (14 oz)
1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste 
2 medium/ large carrot
1 large onion
1 big  leek
1 cup dried lentils
2 garlic cloves
4 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
dried thyme
pepper
salt 

Directions: 

Gotta love veggies. Here’s what I put in there.
 

Wash and finely mince the leek. Just cut the leek into quarters lengthwise, fan the leaves apart under running water to remove all dirt and finely mince them. 
 

Peel and finely mince the carrots. Just out of curiosity, do you peel your carrots or do you just wash them and chop ‘em?
 

Give your onion a chop as well.
 

And grate two medium or 1 really large garlic clove.
 

There are people who soak their lentils. I’m not one of them. I also don’t soak my split peas, takes way too much time and my recipe ideas are simply too fugacious for that. Cooking is a spur of the moment thing for me, so I just rinse them well.
 

Heat 2 tbsp oil and cook the onions and carrots for about 5 minutes. Give the onions a good sweat, and I feel like such a freak for saying that, sweating onions. Weird. 
 

That gives you time to peel, wash and finely mince the potatoes. 
 

As soon as the onions are sweating (!), add the leeks and garlic. Cook for 3 more minutes. 
 

Add 4 tsp curry powder, 1/2 a tsp ground cumin and 1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste. Cook everything for one more minute. Just because you can. 
 

Let’s save you some scrolling. Add the cubed potatoes, lentils, diced tomatoes, water, chicken bouillon cubes, a really good pinch of salt and pepper and some dried (or fresh) thyme to taste. Give it a good stir and bring the soup to a boil. Simmer over low heat for 45 minutes. Until the vegetables and lentils are well done. 
 

Last but not least, finely chop some flat-leaf parsley and stir it in right before serving the soup. Check the seasoning.
 

Have picky eaters at home? You can easily turn this into a really smooth soup by transfering half of the soup (or all of it) to a blender or use your immersion blender and adding a little extra chicken broth.

This was a real flavor bomb. Not to mention it’s so thick and hearty it could easily make a full meal. Definite do-again.