Spiced Carrot and Lentil soup

It is often said that the most humble of beginnings can lead to the most glorious of endings. I have a feeling that was spoken about this soup

This is super cheap and incredibly tasty. Get your hand blenders ready; it's soup time.

I've been making a variant of this dish since my freshers year as it's a great way to use some going off carrots to make lunch for the next week. 

I purchased a stew pack from Aldi last week and used it to make a delicious winter warming stew, but there were about ten carrots in the pack when I only needed two. Rather than overloading my stew with them I put them aside with this recipe in mind. For the price of around £1.70, and with some store cupboard magic, I've now made 8 meals. Get in!

The only downside of this soup is that it's pretty hard work to chop up all the veg, but using a food processor it takes no time at all. You can get your onions cooking and have all 9 of these carrots chopped before those tear educing vegetables have even softened.
Because I am very lazy and hate peeling veg I normally don't bother with carrots or parsnips. Just a quick wash and cutting the ends off is all the prep I need!

Kenwood is bae

Now the 'washing-up-trade-off' of using a processor is pretty intense for me, so I like to use it for every possible reason when I do get it out. No need for a measuring jug when you have this bad boy:

 Because I chopped the carrots so thinly this soup took around 10 minutes to cook completely, meaning that it only took around 20 minutes in total!

Pop this into a thermos and feel like a king the next day.

RECIPE:

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

600g carrots (around 8-10 depending on size) sliced as small as you can

200g red lentils

1 stick of celery (optional) sliced thinly

1 onion, chopped

1 tsp minced garlic (around 1 clove)

1 pinch chilli flakes

1 pinch ground cumin

1 1/2 litre vegetable stock

1/2 tsp garlic masala (or any mixed spice you prefer)

Method:

Using a food processor (don't have a food processor? No problem, just use an old fashioned knife, the soup will taste just as good) finely slice an onion and a stick of celery. The celery isn't necessary but I think adds a lot to a liquid based meals such as soups, stews and casseroles. 

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion and celery for a few minutes, before adding in the chilli, garlic, cumin and masala mix. 

While these are softening feed the carrots through the food processor until they are all chopped. 

Once the onions are translucent tip in the carrots, allow to sweat for around 5 minutes with the lid on.

Using the food processor bowl make up 1 1/2 litres of stock. Pour the stock and red lentils in in one go.

Leave to simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until the lentils are squishy. 

Using a hand blender blitz the soup until smooth.

You can serve this right away but it also freezes really well, meaning for the next week you can enjoy this delicious, speedy and cheap lunch with no more effort at all. Winning!