Slow Cooker Red Lentil Soup

Have you ever seen red lentils?  

I was at a random Italian Market this past weekend and round a bag of red lentils "from Italy." I was intrigued. My phone was dead...as per usual...so I couldn't look up the difference until I got home. Apparently the only difference is color. It tastes and cooks the exact same way, so I made soup out of it.

Ignore the empty peanut butter bowl behind the lentils...my stupid photoshop won't let me crop my pic for some reason....

Ingredients:

2-3 large carrots diced

3/4 cup Red Lentils

4 cups of Chicken Broth

3-4 stalks of celery diced

1 medium onion diced

1 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes

1 Tbs tomato paste

2-3 garlic cloves

1 tsp basil

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp cumin

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cut up all vegetables and put into the bottom of the crockpot. I learned from many bad experiences that you have to cut celery and carrots to the size you want because they don't shrink while cooking...

When it comes to dicing up garlic, I first smash the garlic and then sprinkle some salt on it so my knife does not stick as much and I get more traction. I think I learned this tip from Alton Brown on the Food Network.







 Then put the can of tomatoes over top of vegetables, I was terrified that my lentils would burn if I don't put something underneath it.

 Then you are going to need broth you can use vegetable or chicken. I used 4 cups of chicken broth, but use as much as you need to cover all of the lentils. DON'T STIR!!!! Learn from my prior mistakes...any lentil that is not covered will harden and taste horrible.

Cook on low for 8 hours.

Optional: Add cut up chicken sausage (or a sausage of your choice) when you have 1 hour left on the timer. 

Pros: Delicious! Tasted like regular lentil soup. I did see a lot of recipes for a curry red lentil soup which had some great reviews as well but on a work day I wanted a taste I KNEW I was going to like.

Cons: Didn't keep its red color! It turned a brownish pink. :/ 

Conclusion: Keep it, but don't splurge on the color just buy regular lentils.