A Soup for Winter

Welcome to the home of the hungry programmer! After a long day of fighting my way through undocumented SSIS jobs to try to get them ready for a looming release I'm home to find the horror that that there are no leftovers left!!

Ok - what's in the fridge? a bag of carrots, celery, leek, and a red bell pepper. There's onions and dry lentils in the pantry, and half a dozen or so smoked sausages (kielbasa style). So there's hope, and I'll be fed for the next couple of lunches too!


Ingredients

2 litres Chicken Broth	Red Bell Pepper, chopped	500g dried lentils
20 baby carrots, chopped	6 sticks of celery, chopped	6-8 straight kielbasa, sliced
2 leeks, chopped	1 and a half onions, chopped	Salt, Papper, Basil

Method

• Put about a litre of chicken broth in a (very) large pot and add an onion (and another half, as I had a half waiting) and maybe half a kilo or so of bacon, chopped into little squares. Set it to boil for maybe 15 mins. 
• Add the lentils and simmer for about another 20-30 minutes. 
• The lentils should be swelling nicely by now, so add all the veg and mix it all well together.
• Add about a teaspoonful of basil, and salt and pepper to taste.
• Keep simmering for another 20 minutes.
• Add the kielbasa smoked sausage (sliced into coins) and mix well in. 
• Keep cooking for about another 20 minutes, so all is well boiled. 
• Serve with bread and enjoy the inner warmth!

So here's a close-up so you can see that it's quite a busy-looking soup - plenty of visual interest with the colours and textures.

TTFN