stone soup (with lentils)

Did you ever hear the stone soup story when you were a kid? Whenever I make a pot of something, and I don't know exactly what I'm going to put in it or even what I've got in the fridge that could contribute, I think about that fable.

You start with a stone (i.e. a main ingredient - in this case, lentils), and you go from there.

I got the original recipe from a magazine (though I don't have the publishing details), and it calls for:

• lentils
• sweet potatoes
• onion
• celery
• cumin
  
• coriander
• red bell pepper
• chicken broth
• spinach

What I actually used:

• lentils
• chicken
• one sweet potato
• carrots
• onion
• cumin (1 t.)
  
• coriander (1 t.)
  
• chicken bouillon cubes
  
• turnip greens
• splash of lemon juice (I actually forgot I added that until I saw Deb's lentil soup at Souper Sundays and it reminded me!)
  

So it was similar, but different, in a stony kind of way. It takes a village.

You just boil one cup of lentils with 4.5 cups of water, a few chicken bouillon cubes, and a bay leaf for about 20 minutes or so, then add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for a while, till everything's tender, adding the greens last, just so they wilt.

Submitting this to Kahakai Kitchen's Souper Sunday again. This fits in the souper category, for sure.

Oh, and don't forget your wheat-germ crackers. They'd be sad to miss the party.