“Swedish” Red Lentil Soup

I thought I would share this easy to and nourishing soup with you all as we transition from Spring into Summer. April is almost over and May is fast approaching. I still feel a little behind on the blogging front… Trust me, it’s not or the lack of ideas or not wanting to write. Quite the opposite in fact. It’s just that the past few months has been filled with work on my online programme  and it is slowly coming together. I’m so happy to finally have a way of working with people from all over the world, who would like to heal their relationship with food.

This is a programme which goes beyond weight loss, giving you tools to deal with emotional eating and helping you becoming more in tune with who you are as an eater. Being healthy goes beyond having a “perfect diet”. We all have to eat every day but often we do it for a million other reasons than simply because we are hungry. OR, we eat out of shear necessity, completely disconnected to the food and the pleasure of the act of eating itself. ‘Distract-less’ eating is a powerful skill to master if you want to put an end to over eating and weight gain. Sound interesting? Find out more here.

The past few weeks has made me think. We currently live in such as fast-paced, high achieving society. Thinking BIG, going after your dreams and believing you can have what you really want is strongly encouraged. My FB wall and Instagram feed is full of positive, uplifting quotes. Which is great. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful that I live in an era and a part of the world where so much IS possible. However, all this positivity and achievement driven content can leave you a little flat sometimes, or even have the opposite effect…

Thing is, life move in cycles. It goes up and down. We succeed and we fail. It is ALL part of life.  And ALL of it is valuable life experiences, not just the good times. One thing I’ve learnt from practising mindfulness is to simply be aware of what’s happening right here and now. To just be present. Noticing. When we do, we find that it’s all fluid, just like the four seasons. Nothing lasts forever. Good times come and go. But the DO come again. Just like the sun eventually reappears after the rain.

Perhaps the key to Happiness it simply to realise that? Then we no longer have to fight our feelings. We can stop worrying that when we are feeling down, it will last forever. It won’t. We can fully embrace when we are feeling happy, joyous and content. Because it won’t last forever either…

Maybe that’s why I like Spring so much. This season serves as a reminder that even after a long and dark winter, life slowly awakens again. It’s beautiful and it’s inspiring. And it happens every year.

The point? Simply; by all means, have BIG dreams, goals and intentions. Just don’t put your life on hold until your ‘get there’. Life is what’s happening right now. Embrace it ALL <3

Here’s few images from my current Spring experience.

 

Moving on to the recipe for this post. As it’s still a little chilly, soups are still on the menu in my house.

I use red lentils a lot. They are cheap and mega versatile. Perfect pantry staple!

This recipe is a slight adaptation from a recipe featured in a Swedish cookbook by Catherine Schück. Her recipes are beautifully simple, using basic wholefood ingredients. This type of cooking echo’s my own cooking preferences, using only a few simple fresh, wholesome ingredients.

The ingredients list for this soup is really short. It is a meat-free take on the Swedish classic Thursday staple “Ärtsoppa”, which is normally made from yellow split peas and served with bacon pieces and pancakes as dessert. Here we have skipped the bacon and used the fabulous red lentils instead. It is the marjoram which gives this soup that particular flavour that I remember from having “Ärtsoppa” in school. Trust me though; this one is so much nicer!

If you want to include the pancakes you can try these or these.

“Swedish” Red Lentil Soup

Serves 2

1 ½  cup red lentils, rinsed and pre-soaked for 1h (pre-soaking is optional, not necessary)

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp. olive oil

700ml vegetable stock (fresh or made from stock powder)

A pinch of thyme, fresh or dried

A pinch of marjoram, fresh or dried

Sea salt & black pepper, to season 

Heat the oil in a medium sized pan. Add onion and gently soften the onion. They should turn transparent. Add lentils.  Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce and gently simmer at a low heat for about 30 min until the lentils are nice and mushy.

If the soup is too thick, add a bit of extra water. Add the thyme and marjoram towards the end of the cooking for best flavour. Season with sea salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

You can use either fresh or dried herbs. Quickly blitz it if you want the consistency to be smoother.