Hearty Lentil Soup & Cucumber Onion Salad

All recipes are part of the Healthy Calendar adventure!.

So this was "hearty" lentil soup. That is one adjective I've never understood in the food world. Hearty. What the hell does that even mean? Is that a way of making froofy "hippie food" like lentil soup more tough and manly?

Either way, I give this dish a B minus. I generally like lentil soup, and this was tasty, but not something I'll crave again. It wasn't like any lentil soup I was used to, so maybe that was the problem. Granted, I'm used to canned lentil soup, which is mostly lentils and starch + flavor. I feel like this soup existed already, and the lentils were thrown in as an afterthought. Maybe the chef coauthor of the book wanted to pump up the fiber count in this soup and tossed a few handfuls of lentils in!

I sauteed some turkey sausage and set that aside. Then I sauteed some celery, onion, and carrots together. Then I added the sausage, water, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, dried lentils, salt, pepper, and a bay leaf and simmered for an hour. Then I made the salad!

The cucumber onion salad was tasty, but the raw onions were way too potent for me - something not even all the dairy in the dressing could quell. For the dressing, I stirred together some plain yogurt, sour cream, fresh dill, garlic salt, white wine vinegar, pepper, and a smidgen of sugar substitute. I tossed the sliced cucumber and onions in the mixture and then we were ready to eat!

Here's a tip: plain yogurt is pretty much amazing! It's so versatile! You can mix it with honey and fruit for a dessert, or use it in place of mayonnaise or sour cream in almost any recipe.

I go back to work in the morning after the "snow day", and get to be in a freezer whilst recovering from a cold. Yay.