Herbed Yellow Tomato and Lentil Soup

Finishing my last bowl of soup, I thought it might be time to share this one with you instead of keeping it all to myself. Using the last tomatoes from the garden. Oh no, they have not been out on the vine for a while now. I had to pick them a while back when we were expecting a hard frost, even though they were hard and green as a granny smith apple. But oh wonder, after a couple of weeks, (yes folks, it took that long) they started to turn yellow and even a little red/orange in some spots, I guess because they remembered they were Pineapple tomatoes after all. But knowing that the flavor would not be a sun-ripened version of tomato, I decide soup might be a good bet. And since they are probably less sweet than their sun-ripened cousins, I pondered, maybe creamy would be the way to go? But I also did not want to make it too heavy or rich and full of fat, well I think I struck the balance just right, but judge for yourself. I have eaten the entire pot of soup (serves 4) over the past week, all by myself, there was no sharing here, I admit 😉

By the way, I bet this would be even better with real ripe tomatoes

As I write this, it is very calm outside and very hard to imagine that there is a storm brewing that might outdo last years Halloween Snowstorm. (For those of you not familiar with my area, we don’t usually have snowstorms this early in the year and last year all the leaves where still on the trees, which made the foot of snow into a disaster leaving some of my friends out of power for 2 weeks. I got lucky mine came back on in 2 or 3 days, not too bad, considering. Well this time they are not calling for snow, but a WHOLE LOTTA rain and wind, and for a much longer time) Thank goodness for weather service, or I would have happily packed my bags for a week end hike and ended up blown away 🙁

Instead I might make some more soup tomorrow, and work on one of my little winter projects…

Pretty, right? You can get the pattern from Pam Powers’ website

Ingredients

5 medium counter ripened tomatoes, yellow or red (sun ripened would work too), chopped
1/2 onion, diced
1 rapunzel vegan bouillon cube or 2 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup cottage cheese
1 medium carrot, grated on the coarse side of the grater
1/2 cup Le Puy (french green) lentils
1 red pepper, seeded, peeled and chopped
3 sundried tomatoes, cut into small pieces
2 tbsp pesto
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
water, 2-4 cups

Directions

Heat some oil over medium high in your soup pot, then add the onions and cook until slightly browned in spots, then add the tomatoes. Add salt, pesto and herbs and cook until the tomatoes render their juices (and it all becomes soup-y)
Add the bouillon cube and about 4 cups of water (or 2 cups broth and 2 cups water) and bring to a boil.
Add the rinsed and sorted lentils. Add the sun dried tomatoes. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer and cook until lentils are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
In the meantime cook the bell pepper over the grill until blackened, set aside covered or enclose inside a paper bag, and when cooled enough to handle peel the blackened skin off (rubbing it with a paper towel works pretty well), then chop the roasted pepper and add to the soup
Add the cottage cheese and stir until mostly melted.
When the lentils are cooked, season the soup to taste with black pepper and more salt if desired