Weekday Cooking: Tomato and Lentil Soup

As much as I love my go-to weekday dishes, I don't usually write about them here. Many times it is due to the lack of decent photography or actually the lack of any photos. If I've been patient enough to cook after day's work, I will not be patient enough to even take a snap, let alone plan a shoot. The photos I get are usually of below-mediocre quality so usually I just don't even bother to take my camera but just eat it up. This time makes no exception in photography...

If you are wondering about my choice of a warming soup at this time of a year, you haven't been in Finland lately: it's been freezing cold here (exceptionally cold even for Finland). It's almost July and the daytime temperatures have been as low as 10 C (today's exception), despite the sunshine (there can be rainy or cloudy summer days when the temperature might go as low, but also on sunny days???). It would be nice to go for a drink after work and to enjoy the long white nights, but not if it's so cold you'll be needing mittens!!! This soup will warm you up!

Tomato and Lentil Soup (serves 4-6)

2 onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic,grated
dried chili flakes
2 cans (800 g) chopped tomatoes
dried basil and oregano
1 tsp sugar
100 g red lentils, washed and drained
1 tsp salt (or according to taste)

Heat some vegetable oil in a pot and saute onions and garlic. Add the chili flakes and saute a minute or two more (don't let them burn). Add the tomatoes, herbs and sugar. Add 1-2 cans water (use the emptied tomato can for measurement) to make a thin soup (lentils will thicken it up later). Bring the soup to boil and then reduce heat to simmer. Let cook at least 10 minutes (the longer you cook, the better the taste gets). Add lentils and cook according to package's instructions (use the shortest time they've given, if you don't want the lentils to go mushy. I cooked them 5 minutes). Season with salt.

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