Rainy Day Lunch

I've been craving lentil soup ever since the weather started to get cold. Yesterday, I made The Barefoot Contessa's Lentil Vegetable Soup. It made the whole apartment smell amazing, and it has tons of flavor. But I had to modify it a bit - it makes so much soup I didn't have a pot big enough! It calls for a lot of veggies, so be prepared for a lot of chopping. I started cooking it in my round le Creuset dutch oven, but when I started adding the stock, I needed to switch to my larger oval dutch oven. And I still couldn't fit the 3rd quart of stock, but it seemed fine with 2 quarts of stock. (And my freezer is now packed with ziplock bags of the soup!) I also used my immersion blender to puree some of the soup to give it a creamier texture. The recipe calls for finishing the soup with either red wine or red wine vinegar. I tried a bowl with a splash of vinegar, which was nice, but I finished the rest of the soup with red wine, and I definitely prefer how that enhances the flavors in the soup.

Today I had a bowl of the soup with a toasted turkey and cheese sandwich. It was the perfect warm and hearty meal for this cold and drizzly day!