Moosewood Lentil Soup

..."gentle." I always love seeing that on the recipe page. Sami's off teaching in the French Alps, poor baby, so this is a good time for us to eat girl food like lentil soup. I began with the Moosewood recipe and took a couple of deviations. For one, Molly Katzen thinks you should cook your lentil soup all day, when lentils really only need about half an hour. I compromised and cooked it for about an hour. And I changed the order of the ingredients, though I didn't change much about the ingredients themselves. If you're an unreformed carnivore, smoked sausage is always nice in lentil soup.

Lentil Soup

1 T. butter

1 large onion, minced

2 large carrots, peeled and diced

2 stalks celery, diced (I used a hunk of celery root)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 t. dried thyme

2 t. salt

Freshly ground pepper

2-3 T. sherry (or red wine or white wine or vermouth)

3 c. lentils (the brown kind will make a smoother soup; the green kind will have more texture)

7 c. water or stock

1 16-oz. can diced tomatoes

Juice of 1/2 large lemon

1 T. molasses or brown sugar

1 T. red wine vinegar

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. When it has melted, add the onion, carrots, and celery and sauté for about 10 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper, and sauté for another minute. Add the sherry or other booze and use it to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Let it cook down to almost nothing, then add the lentils. Stir them until coated and then pour in the water/stock. Bring that to a boil, cover, turn down the heat to low, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the tomatoes, lemon juice, molasses/brown sugar, and vinegar and cook another 30 minutes. Serve with home-baked whole wheat bread and some 70s folk-rock.