Hit The Spot Lentil Soup

For decades, I've broken fasts on vegetable soups. My kids remember them, too. I'm not quite sure when I started cooking them, but now it's automatic. So on Tuesday, while fasting to commemorate the Tenth of Tevet, I took a bunch of brown lentils, checked them first bit by bit on a white plate to make sure there were no stones or worse, and then I put them in a large pot, added boiling water, covered and let them sit.

I started a good few hours before the fast was to end, so the final cooking with vegetables shouldn't take long. When I checked softness and wasn't satisfied, I added more boiling water and boiled them on the stove a short time. After again letting it sit, I could easily see that they were soft and ready.

Then a couple of hours before I wanted to serve the soup, meaning break the fast, I added cut up:

• onion
• carrots
• squash
• a generous "splash" of vegetable oil

I boiled, then simmered it on the stove. And then I added cut up sweet potato and some dehydrated parsley. Salt and pepper were added close to the end of cooking. About a half hour before serving I turned it off, and then when it was time to eat, we had a feast. 

All I needed to fill me up after fasting was this soup, bowl after bowl. The lentils tasted like honey especially with the small chunks of sweet potato.