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SOUP AND SLICE TAKES THE CHILL OFF

WHAT a miserably wet and cold long weekend. Sorry folks, nothing left to do but make a nice hot pot of soup and bake. I've mentio...

WHAT a miserably wet and cold long weekend. Sorry folks, nothing left to do but make a nice hot pot of soup and bake.

I've mentioned my roast tomato, lentil and cumin soup recipe a couple of times before on the blog but today seemed like a good day to share it. It's an oldie but a goodie and comes from a long-ago issue of Woolworths Good Taste magazine.

You'll need:
1kg of Roma tomatoes (that's about 12, but Roma toms are big right now, so I use less).
olive oil
salt
black pepper
1 1/3 cup of red lentils
2 tspns ground cumin
9 cups stock

What you do is:
Cut the tomatoes in half and lay cut side up on a tray over a roasting dish. I line my dish with baking paper because it makes the clean up easier. Sprinkle with salt and sploosh a little olive oil over the toms and roast in a hot oven. The recipe says 30mins but I keep going until the tomatoes are soggy and crinkled around the edges. Bring them out of the oven and let them cool, trying to keep all the juices in the tomatoes. You'll want those delicious juices.

While the toms are roasting, cut up your onion. I just cut it roughly, it's going through a blender anyway. Heat a tablespoon of oil (another "sploosh") in your soup pot and saute the onions until clear and soft. Add your cumin and fry up until you start to drool: that is, until it smells good. Rinse those lentils, and - this isn't in the recipe - whack them in the pot and coat them in the oil and onion and cumin goodness until they're glossy. Now, put in hot stock. The recipe calls for chicken but I like using vegetable stock in this recipe. I think the chicken detracts from the roast tomato flavour. Also, I add seven cups initially and only add the last two if I think the lentils need it. I do like quite a thick soup, so only add the last two cups if you're after a thinner soup.

Let this simmer away for 20mins. You'll soon know after that time whether you need the extra two cups of stock. Add your roasted tomatoes and use a stick blender to puree the ingredients. I leave it a bit chunky, which is a super nice way to have it.

And, since you've already had the oven on, why not bake a date loaf as well?

This is from an old fundraising cook book. It calls for one cup of boiling water to be poured over one cup of dates, a half cup of sugar, a tablespoon of butter, a pinch of salt and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. Mix the ingredients until the hot water melts the butter. Stir in 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour and bake in a moderate oven for 35mins. I used a small loaf, greased and lined loaf tin.

Boil the kettle, make a pot of tea, sit down with a knife and a knob of butter and enjoy hot.

That should take the chill off the rest of the long weekend for you.

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