Serves: 8
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour

Ingredients

•200g streaky bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 large carrots, peeled and diced
• 4 stalks celery and leaves, diced
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
• 4 ripe tomatoes, diced
• 375g French puy lentils, rinsed
• 2 1/2 litres beef, chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 bay leaves
• few sprigs thyme
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped continental parsley
• sea salt and freshly black pepper, to taste

Method

Fry bacon in a large pot until golden, add onions and garlic and sauté until softened. Add carrots, celery, potatoes, tomatoes, lentils, stock, bay leaves and thyme and bring to the boil. Simmer covered for 45 minutes – 1 hour, until lentils are tender, adding extra stock or water, if needed. Using a stab blender, partially puree to thicken the soup. Add olive oil, parsley and season to taste. Serve with crusty bread.

Tips

Fennel can be used in place of the celeryGoMindz Team