Recipe: Red Lentil Soup

Last winter The New York Times ran a recipe for red lentil soup in the 'A Good Appetite' column. When I was trying to come up with an easy dinner menu for friends on a weekday night, I took a look in my kitchen cabinets to see what I had on hand. I saw the red lentils I'd bought after reading about the red lentil soup and decided it was high time I tried the recipe.

The soup turned out so well I wish I'd made it sooner! I made the recipe exactly as written, but increased the quantities by a half. I also skipped that last step of pureeing half the soup, which seemed a little fussy for lentil soup. I served it with white rice and a green salad with cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. I also made a yogurt sauce with Fage yogurt, sour cream and chopped cilantro, which we dolloped into the soup. Above are the few remaining lentils, but I plan to buy more when I head to Fairway later today.