Warming Winter Soup!

Today I got a bit preoccupied with organising paper into different coloured piles (constructive, yes?) instead of taking photos to show you my latest cards, so I thought I'd share with you my very own tried and tested recipe for Warming Winter Soup (carrot, lentil and butternut squash)! I love soup, but because I eat it about five out of seven days of the week (creative!) I get pretty bored of the old Cream of Tomato, addictive as it is, and do like a bit o' variation sometimes! This recipe makes an enormous pan-full - enough for everyone to have some for tea and then to have for lunch for the next couple of days, but you can obviously halve the ingredients if you're not feeling quite so soup-tastic!



Ingredients:
- a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
- two onions
- a few cloves of garlic (I like garlic, so this had five cloves in!)
- a few large carrots (it's not really an exact science, this soup-making lark!)
- five sticks of celery
- a butternut squash
- a small bowl-full of lentils
- two vegetable stock cubes
- a tin of chickpeas
- salt and pepper to taste

But you can obviously add whatever you fancy (or have in the house) and omit anything you don't like!



Chop up the onions and crush the garlic whilst you heat the olive oil in a large pan. Fry on a low heat with the lid on. Don't add any salt until later, because it stops the lentils from softening.



Grate the carrots and add them one by one. Does anyone else have a fear of graters? No? Just me, then...I grated my finger AGAIN today!



Chop up the celery and add to the pan once the carrots have started to turn yellow.




Chop up the squash, scooping out the seeds and removing the skin (you can do this with the skin on if you prefer, but my dad doesn't like it!). Add to the pan once the celery has started to soften.


Measure out your lentils, and add them to the pan with twice as much water as lentils (this is why I measure lentils by the bowlful rather than by weight). Don't add any salt yet!



Once the lentils are soft, dissolve the stock cubes in 300ml of boiling water and drain the chickpeas. Add them both to the pan.


Once your chickpeas are warmed through, it's time to blend! You can do this with a hand blender or a food processor, but I tend to make such a lot it's easier to keep it in the pan!


Finally have a bit and add salt and pepper to taste! Eat with plenty of fresh bread, cheese, olives and humus...mmm!