Lentils. I have never cooked with Lentils before. I see many blog posts about Lentil soup. Jeana had a post about making Lentil Soup and even though it did not turn out how she wanted it her post compelled me to go out and buy me some vittles lentils.
They then proceeded to lie in my cupboard mocking me and my anti-vegan consumerism lifestyle ever since.
Then gas hit $4 a gallon with the promise of eventually hitting $7 in another year. Vegan and cheap sustenance is sounding fan-freakin-tastic. So I hit the internet and started looking at recipes for cooking this cheap little legume in order to stockpile against the coming Armageddon. (I should never have read this article in the Sunday Tulsa World)
Because I am combining, switching, and de-veganing this crockpot version of Lentil Soup I feel free to name it. It will now be called, In Case We Really Do Go Broke Soup, nicknamed Armageddon Soup-to scar scare the kids. (Wouldn't my stepkids mom just love to know I am feeding her kids End of the World soup?)
Time to empty out the pantry and stock up on Gas is $4 and Climbing Lentil Soup. Link to print is at the bottom of the post.
The Ingredients:
- 3 cups of Lentils, picked through for small pieces of trash and rinsed
- 1/2 pkg of Bacon cut into 2 inch pieces (this can be omitted but thought my chances of getting everyone to eat this went up tremendously with b-a-c-o-n)
- 3-4 stalks of celery, diced
- 1 red onion, diced
- 20 baby carrots, chopped up (sliced)
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tbls of minced garlic
- 1.5 tsp of ground cumin
- 1.5 tsp of garam masala (my homage to the vegans who consist on lentils)
- 1 tbls of garlic salt
- 2 tbls of olive oil
- 2 spoonfulls of Frank's Hot Sauce
- 2 cans Chicken Broth
- 3 cups of water
- 1 can Rotel
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1/3 cup of Cooking Sherry before serving (this is optional)
Whew!! That was a huge long list of ingredients.
In a saute pan brown the bacon pieces and then add the onions, carrots, celery, garlic, and red pepper. Cook until slightly soft but not browned.
While sauteing the bacon and veggies dump all the other ingredients minus the Cooking Sherry into the Crock Pot. Once veggies and bacon are finished add to the mix (I used all the bacon grease, why not? My weight will not be an issue if I am walking to work everyday)
Set the Crockpot to cook for 6-8 hours. Stir in Cooking Sherry the last half hour and serve with pita bread. I found some onion pita at Reasors, yum! Store the leftovers for later use when you are chopping down your kitchen cabinets for firewood. The soup will bring back fond memories when gas was only $4.
Here is the a printable copy for CrockStar Armageddon Lentil Soup.
Some recipes say to take half of the soup and puree it and then add back in. If it was winter time I might have done this just to make it psychologically more hearty. I was not really wanting that at this time of the year.
** Updated to add**
THIS IS AWESOME!!!! We loved this. I might back off of the Garam Masala since that was just a tad too overpowering but even with it I think it was soooo good. Honestly? I thought Man, I should open my own restaurant and just serve versions of this it is so good. This made enough for 3 servings the first night, 3 servings on Friday night and 3 ziploc bags of 2.5 servings to freeze. LOVED IT!!
