Ingredients (Serves 4)

3 cups of chopped tomatoes (use 2 tins if you don’t have fresh)

2 tsp of Olive oil or rapeseed oil

4 Sun dried tomatoes

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 Vegetable stock cube

5 Basil leaves

1/2 cup red lentils

2 Cloves of garlic

1 Chilli (optional)

1 tsp of sugar

1 red onion

2 carrots

4 cups of water

Salt and pepper to taste

This is a super easy filling soup packed full of flavour, protein and best of all will only take you 20-25 minutes to make.

This was shared with us by Lara Jane Thorpe…  a local photographer who takes many of our beautiful photographs and a good friend of Polly’s Petals.

 

Method:

Roughly chop your onion and carrots, then place in a large heavy bottom saucepan and fry in a little olive oil until the onion is sweet and translucent (about 5 minutes).

During this time, you can be chopping the rest of the ingredients.

We like to keep the skins on the tomatoes for flavour and much of the goodness of the fruit is stored there.

Turn down the heat on your pan add the garlic, chilli and saute for 1 minute.

Then simply add all the remaining ingredients to your saucepan, turn down to a simmer and cook your soup for 15-20 mins until the lentils are cooked and start to soften.

Stir every now and again while cooking so the bottom of the pan doesn’t burn, you may need a little extra water if it becomes to thick when the lentils start to cook.

Take your pan off the heat, allow to cool a little before using a handheld blender to blend until you have a smooth soup. Now check your seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste if needed.

Serve hot in a bowl sprinkled with Polly’s Petals to give that extra pop of vibrant colour.