Crock pot lentil soup

A thick, hearty soup made from minimal ingredients. Also extremely flexible, feel free to experiment and add pretty much whatever you want. A super easy way to start dinner cooking before you leave for work in the morning!

• 2 cups of various dried lentils/beans/peas
• 8 cups of water or stock or a combination of the two
• 1/4 cup or so of mixed spices (for example: salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, oregano, thyme, dill, rosemary, celery salt, cayenne, coriander, pretty much whatever you have in the house)
• 3 bay leaves
• OPTIONAL
• Diced vegetables
• Sliced/cubed/ground/shredded meat
• Anything else you can find in your pantry and/or fridge

If you couldn't tell by the vagueness of the ingredients, there's no real set recipe here... which is the beauty of anything done in a slow cooker.

At the heart of this soup is the dried lentils & beans. Readily available packaged or in bulk at any grocer, about 2 cups total is what you'll need. I tend to go for even ratios of red lentils, green lentils, white beans, and pinto beans: about 1/2 cup each.

Pour mix of lentils & beans into your slow cooker, along with 8-10 cups of water. Feel free to substitute some of the water with chicken or beef stock, noting that this will make the end product slightly oilier (but also more flavorful). Set slow cooker on "low."

Mix together approximately 1/4 cup of various seasonings & spices, as per your own tastes. For best results, grind together in a mortar and pestle along with a few drops of olive oil to form a rough paste, allowing the flavours of the spices to blend. Add this spice mixture and 2-3 bay leaves to the liquid/lentils in the crock pot and stir well.

Essentially, that's the entire recipe. Don't worry too much about getting the spice mixture correct right at the start. The soup will cook nicely over the next 8 hours, giving you plenty of time to taste the broth and add any extra flavors you feel necessary. By the time 8-10 hours (or more) have passed, many of the dried lentils will have dissolved, giving a nice thick broth.

Serve in bowls. Eat with a spoon. The more adventurous may want a dollop of sour cream on top. Thick slices of dense, crusty white bread and glasses of cheap red wine go very nicely.

The longer you cook this soup, the better it gets. I've let the slow cooker do its thing for 24 hours before eating, and just left it on "keep warm" for 3 days until the soup was all eaten, and it just kept getting more and more delicious. You can always add a bit of water to it if you find it reducing and getting too thick.

OPTIONAL:

A few additions can make this already fantastic soup even better.

- Any diced/crushed vegetables you have on hand can be added at any time: carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, celery, peppers, quartered tomatoes, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, shallots, sweet potatoes, etc. As much or as little as you would like.

- Slice 3 raw chicken breasts (skinless) into 1" cubes and brown in olive oil and perhaps some sweet chili sauce or something. Add browned cubes to the soup at any point during the cooking process. I usually add it after about 4 hours of cooking time, but any time is fine - note that the later in the process you add chicken, the more you must ensure that it is well-cooked before adding.

- Use any other leftover meat from previous meals. Leftover ground beef, sausage, ham, etc. all work nicely.

- For an additional flavor and coloring, add a generous splodge of tomato paste.

- Want to get crazier? Throw in a handful of dried apricots or cashews during cooking. Or a couple of cinnamon sticks in place of bay leaves. Try substituting 2 cups of water with a can of cheap beer at the beginning.

The bottom line with a recipe like this is that I've probably made it two dozen times, doing something different each time, and I have yet to screw it up. The general rule is this: Slow cooker + whatever you have on hand + time = awesome.