Lentil Minestrone Soup

This recipe was submitted by my dear friend Heather; she always cooks fresh, healthy, organic and FUN things. I LOVE dinner parties with her family :) Her Epicutie Little Ray is still a little young to be sampling something like this, but I have a feeling very soon I will be featuring some of her recipes!!! Heather adapted this Lentil Minestrone Soup from "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison.

Ingredients:

• 2 T olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 3 T tomato paste
• 1/4 c chopped parsley
• 3-4 cloves chopped garlic
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 carrots, diced
• 2-3 ribs celery, diced
• 1 c green lentils, sorted for rocks and rinsed
• Aromatics: 2 bay leaves, 8 parsley branches or celery leaf stalks, 6 thyme sprigs (or whatever herbs you have on hand)
• 9 cups water
• 2 c small pasta, cooked
• fresh ground pepper
• 1 T Dijon mustard (KEY ingredient)
• 1 T red wine vinegar (KEY ingredient)

Steps:

1. Heat oil and onion in soup pot over high heat, stirring regularly, until lightly browned, about 10 mins.
2. Add tomato paste, parsley, garlic, veggies, and salt and cook 3 mins more.
3. Add lentils, aromatics, and water and bring to a boil.
4. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.
5. Add pasta, stir and cook for an additional 15 minutes.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Remove aromatics from soup before serving.
8. Serve warm.

Yeild: About 8 servings

Serve: Serve with 7 Grain Bread (post coming soon!) or other bread along with a salad for the adults.

Timing: Everything in the soup is very soft so if your little one demonstrates the ability to chew and has several teeth I would think this appropriate. Keep in mind, there is a lot going on in this dish and it can be messy since its a soup. So it might be more appropriate for the pre-toddler (12-18 months). Since Little Joy had teeth and loved finger foods, I would have offered it to her as early as 10-12 months I think.

Variations: Although I have not tried it, I think sliced mushrooms or lima beans or cut up green beans would be a great addition to the soup. Be adventurous and add more veggies your family likes!!

Difficulty: 3 out of 5; I only give it a 3 vs 2 because of the overall time involved including cook time. This is VERY easy and worth the effort.

Epicutie Rating: Yummy in the Tummy--see right side of page for descriptions

Little Joy loved this...especially the lentils, she calls them beans (and she loves beans for some reason). She made a big ole mess with it, but really liked it. Little Joy is starting to like leftovers so by the third day she was kinda over it :)

No pictures this time, with Baby #2 due TWO DAYS AGO I am not totally on my game with documenting our food adventures!