How To Make Vegetable Soup

This recipe is great for cold winter nights! A yummy lentil and vegetable soup. When making soups, I like to throw a lot of different vegetables in the pot but you can choose what you like to add according to your food choices. So here is the recipe, I even took the picture above after I cooked it, so you could check it out! Serves enough for 5 people (Even if you only want to make it for 2 people, I like to make extra so I can freeze it for another nights dinner!) Ingredients:1 cup red lentils,1 cup brown lentils,1 onion or 1 leek (whatever you prefer!), 2 carrots, 2 zucchini, 2 celery sticks,1/4 pumpkin, 2 potatos,1/2 cup peas, 1 Tablespoon mixed herbs, 1 teaspoon fresh dill, 1 bunch english spinach, 1.5L Vegetable Stock, 400g canned whole pealed tomatos, Extra Water (1-2 cups)Variation: If you wanted to have lentil soup that is not just vegetable and lentil then make small changes to the recipe. Such as - instead of using vegetable stock use beef stock, add vegetables like carrot, celery, onion and add bacon bones into the soup for flavour.
7 Simple Steps how to make the soup:

1. Prepare and cut up all the ingredients: cut the pumpkin and potatoes into chunk sized pieces, the carrots and zucchini sliced into circle pieces, the celery and onion or leek into small pieces and divide the spinach in half.
2. Brown the onion or leek in the pot.
3. Add the vegetable stock, lentils, potatoes, pumpkin, mixed herbs and bring to a boil. Let it boil for a few minutes or till the lentils and vegetables start to get soft.
4. Once lentils and vegetables are starting to soften, add the remaining vegetables, peas, carrots, celery, zucchini and add the tin of whole pealed tomato. If the mixture is very thick or there is not enough liquid like a soup, then add some water.
5. Cook on low to medium heat for 15 - 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are soft.
6. 5 minutes prior to serving add the spinach to the soup. The spinach needs to be added last because it takes only a few minutes to cook.
7. Serve in a soup bowl and add a garnish of dill. n Enjoy! n