Comfort food

Chorizo, lentil and chick pea soup

When it's raining and miserable and you feel confined to the indoors, the best thing to make you feel better is always a bowl of hearty soup. My mother taught me this: there where countless days (and not just Sundays, but mostly after a soccer game played in the rain) when we would come home, the kitchen windows would be all foggy, and the house would smell so full and rich, you where guaranteed there was a bubbly pot of soup on the range top.
Therefore thinking of this memory made me remember mum's chorizo, lentil and chick pea soup, which I had to make!

What's this got to do with my knee? Nothing but the fact that I can potter in front of the stove and make dinner, spend 4 hours in the garden tilling my ground cover and planting more seeds, and even go do some grocery shopping! Ok, maybe it has a lot do with the knee: the fact that I have the strength and barely no pain to do household duties I think is a pretty good achievement. Kevin is especially pleased over the fact that I am back to cooking (as old fashioned as that sounds!). He quite enjoys coming home and his stay home gimpy wifey has made him antipasto for diner: buffalo mozzarella shreds, prosciutto, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and basil, and wild mushroom bruschetta served on grilled ciabatta rubbed with garlic and rosemary...oh yea, the girl is back and back in force! 

Anyway, below is the recipe for the soup, which really took an hour tops to make:

Ingredients:

• 4 chorizo (freshly made if possible from your deli) sliced chunky
• olive oil for cooking
• 3-4 garlic cloves (depends how much you like garlic, or if you're using wild garlic) knife smashed then chopped roughly
• 1 medium yellow onion finely sliced
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 celery sticks chopped roughly 
• a handful of fresh thyme, leaves picked, or a good sprinkling of dried thyme
• teaspoon of smoked paprika 
• chilli flakes: amount up your discretion but I used about a teaspoon and a half 
• half a cup of red or green lentils (soak first)
• a can of cooked chick peas: the organic brands tend to have less salt
• about a litre and a bit of organic chicken stock (none of that stock powder crap) 
• fresh ground pepper and sea salt to taste 
• fresh basil, hand ripped (more taste is produced with ripping the basil then cutting) 
• crunchy French bread

Prep you food to begin! It's not fun stirring things in the pot and trying to chop at the same time...you are asking for trouble. Prep everything first, put them in bowls in order to cook with, cans opened, etc... makes life easy.
Add a good glug of oil in your usual soup pot: I am in love with my cast iron pot (as seen in the snap above). When ready, add the chorizo and gently brown. Add the onion, garlic, carrots and onion and gently sweat them until soft. Add the herbs, paprika and chilli, and give a good spoon around.
Add the lentils, chick peas, and stock, bring to the boil, then gently simmer with lid on for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils and chick peas are soft. 
When ready for serving, season to taste, serve with the ripped basil on top, drizzle your best extra virgin olive oil over top and serve with some crunchy French bread! 


Super simple, super easy and tasty! Oh, and it totally tastes better the next day.