Faux Mexican Lentil Soup

Firstly, apologies to all Mexican people for this meal. It's certainly not authentic in any way!!!  However, it is delicious, easy and super duper healthy, so hopefully I can be forgiven it's name!!!

I like to cook soup in bulk so I can freeze it in portions for my husband's lunches or for dinner when I don't have time to cook (or can't be bothered!).  You can easily halve this recipe for a more reasonable serving quantity.  It's a thick soup, but feel free to add more stock if you prefer it thinner.

You could definitely make this in a slow cooker if you have one - I have before and it turned out great.  I'm not usually organised enough for this though, so a chuck it in and ready in 40 minutes is more my way. ;-)

Serves 12-16 depending on your portion sizes. (I use the little yellow bowl which is about 1 cup and my husband uses the blue striped bowl which is a standard size so we got about 16 serves, but if you all use standard size bowls, it would be more like 12 serves.)

Ingredients:
- 3-4 carrots
- 2 zucchinis
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 3 cups of red lentils, rinsed well
- 1 cup of french lentils (or green lentils or whichever other type of lentil you like really - just check cooking time), rinsed well
- 2.5-3 cups of stock (veg or chicken)

- 1.5-3 teaspoons of ground cumin (depending on your spice/flavour preference and if your kids might be eating it.)
- 2 teaspoons of oregano
- 2 teaspoons of paprika
- 1-3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper (depending on your heat preference)
- 2 cans of tomatoes (if using whole ones, which I prefer, chop/mash them up)
- a bag of baby spinach or a bunch of silverbeet

Directions:
- finely chop the carrots and zucchini
- roughly chop the spinach or silverbeet
- saute the carrots in some olive oil for a minute or two (in the photo below you can see that I added the zucchini at the same time, but I prefer to add the zucchini a bit later.)
- add the spices and cook for another couple of minutes

- add the red lentils, hot stock and tomatoes

- cook, covered, on low/medium heat for 15 minutes - stir once or twice
- add the zucchini, spinach and French lentils and cook, covered, for 25-30 minutes - stir occasionally and add extra stock or water if it's getting too thick

- add salt and pepper to taste

Serving suggestions:
- on it's own
- with a dollop of light sour cream
- with a dollop of natural yoghurt
- with some chopped avocado and a squeeze of lemon or lime (and coriander if you are that way inclined - I'm not!!!)
- with some natural corn chips on top or on the side - my husband uses a bowl of corn chips as a spoon to eat the whole bowl of soup - his metabolism allows this, mine does not!!!
- or any combination of the above!  My fave is light sour cream and natural corn chips - yummo!!!!

Happy cooking!

Love Amy xoxo