Before we got married, my husband Josh served a mission for our church for 2 years in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. In a few areas that he served, he would have the blessing of having a few lunch ladies (pencionistas) that would make the missionaries food, mainly because lunch was the most important meal of the day there. They were always simple meals like soup. He ate A LOT of soup on his mission. Almost every day. The most often soup served was lentil soup! He never knew what lentils were before his mission and he grew to really love them! When he came home and we got married, he asked for lentil soup so I searched for a good recipe! Bolivian lentil soup was basically broth, lentils, tomatoes, carrots, and sometimes a little meat, served over rice. At that point in my life, I have never cooked lentils and so I found Giada's recipe online and instantly knew it would be a good one!
Anywho, I've been making this yummy lentil soup ever since we were newlyweds and it's been a favorite during the few cold months we have here in Arizona. I love a recipe that is simple and doesn't ask for a lot of complicated ingredients. When we were first married, I was obsessed with Pinterest recipes. Although I still love finding a good Pinterest recipe, I found that so many of them called for many ingredients that would hurt our grocery budget. I hated buying that one ingredient that you would only use for that recipe.
Now in the Boyd home, I buy simple yet important ingredients that can be used for multiple recipes! For example, I stock my fridge with lots of fruits and vegetables and always have the basics like chicken, turkey meat, brown rice, wheat tortillas, lentils, black beans, cans of diced tomatoes, green chilies, chicken stock, etc. And I stock our spice cabinet too and have versatile sauces in our fridge. Things that can make a very flavorful meal with simple ingredients-and easy on the wallet! Your meals don't have to be complicated for it to taste good! This lentil soup is super easy and cheap! You can find a bag of lentils at the store for like a dollar and carrots and cans of diced tomato are super cheap too.
Now in the Boyd home, I buy simple yet important ingredients that can be used for multiple recipes! For example, I stock my fridge with lots of fruits and vegetables and always have the basics like chicken, turkey meat, brown rice, wheat tortillas, lentils, black beans, cans of diced tomatoes, green chilies, chicken stock, etc. And I stock our spice cabinet too and have versatile sauces in our fridge. Things that can make a very flavorful meal with simple ingredients-and easy on the wallet! Your meals don't have to be complicated for it to taste good! This lentil soup is super easy and cheap! You can find a bag of lentils at the store for like a dollar and carrots and cans of diced tomato are super cheap too.
I won't post the recipe myself since I shared the link but I do change a couple of things:
- I use Italian style diced tomatoes (I love the added flavor of Italian seasonings!)
- Even tho full sized carrots have more flavor, sometimes I use baby carrots because we always have those on hand.
- I opt of the celery because both Josh and I hate celery...I've always wanted to try putting a different vegetable in there tho!
- I usually opt of the elbow pasta too because we rarely ever have pasta in the house. Weston does not like pasta, so that's our main reason for not buying it. Plus I don't really like the carbs of pasta ;)
Not the best picture but you get the idea! *Lentils are packed with protein so this soup is a double win! I would make this a lot when I was pregnant :) Enjoy!
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