When I first started this blog (a year ago this month! Wow, time flies!) I maintained a pretty good balance of posting both recipes and crafts. Lately I’m realizing that as my squishy baby becomes less squishy and more of little marathon runner/mountain climber in-training, I’ve defaulted to a lot of my go-to recipes – things that are tried and true and can be prepared either with one hand as Baby P “helps” or that I can prepare in the time it takes him to finish his own dinner while he is confined to his high chair, lol. The other night when I was meal planning for this week and scanning through my “tried and true” Pinterest board, I kept coming across my own original recipes and became determined to test out one of the many recipes that I’ve been cooking up in my head recently but haven’t had the time to actually try out. So that is how I came to whip up this delicious Indian-inspired soup, perfect for a chilly fall or winter day! Aside from the fact that I love a jazzed-up spin on an old classic like lentil soup, I also love that this could totally be a “pantry-meal” a.k.a. something you could make using items that you already have on hand which makes it SUPER easy and super cheap as well. Two final and super important benefits of this recipe is that it is both super healthy and freezable! I made a big batch so that I was able to freeze the half we didn’t eat and simply heat it up for a quick meal another night.

SWEET POTATO CURRY LENTIL SOUP

INGREDIENTS

• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 inch cubes
• 1 large tomato diced (or substitute 1/2 cup canned diced tomatoes)
• 8-10 cups chicken or vegetable broth OR 8-10 cups water and 2 Tbsp. bullion or chicken/vegetable base
• 1 1/2 cups lentils, rinsed
• 2 Tbsp. curry powder
• 1/2 tsp. coriander
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Step 1: In a dutch oven or large pot heat the olive oil and add in garlic, onions, carrots and celery and cook until just soft.

Step 2: Add in diced tomatoes and spices, season with salt and pepper and allow to cook for about 2 minutes then stir in lentils and sweet potatoes. Bring to a boil then reduce to simmer for about 35-45 minutes until lentils are cooked and sweet potatoes are soft.

Step 3: If you like your soups really chunky you can omit this step but I use an immersion blender to blend the soup up a bit, leaving some chunks but so that the smoothness of the portion of blended potatoes and lentils give the illusion of a heavier soup even though this is a light recipe. NOTE: If you don’t have an immersion blender simply ladle about 2-4 cups of soup into a regular blender or food processor, blend and then return that to the pot with the rest of the soup.