Lentil soup - with pancetta, spinach and tomatoes.

Last weekend I made a huge pot of chicken curry, and I ate that with kale nearly every night when I got home from work with no time to cook. Today I decided that lentil soup was the main dish on my menu for the week ahead, and as I was shopping I came up with some ideas of what to put it in. I have never made lentil soup before, but the lentils had a plain lentil soup recipe on the back which always helps. Not that I followed it, but it is there if you were needing help or wanted to do a simple soup without all this other stuff in it. My ingredients were as follows (and they are approximate in true 'me' fashion):

2 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 cps loosely packed with cubed pancetta

Half a large onion cut fairly finely

5 cloves of garlic roughly chopped

2 cups of red lentils

1 can of tomatoes with Italian seasoning (any tomatoes would do, I liked the herbs being in them already)

1 cup chicken stock

1 chicken stock cube

3 cups water (collected in the tomato can to wash out the last bits)

2 cups chopped spinach firmly packed

2 tsps curry powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Chilli/tobasco sauce to taste

I bought my pancetta already cubed, if you don't have it cubed then cut it up. I fried it in the olive oil in a large pot, then added the onion and garlic and let it cook up a bit. After about 10minutes I added the lentils and let them fry a little. The stock followed. It was all I had left, hence the addition of a stock cube and water as well. Then the tomatoes and curry powder. The spinach was a frozen block of chopped spinach which I just put in the pot and let fall apart. Once the hot sauce and salt and pepper were in, I gave it a stir and let it simmer away for about 30minutes or more. Keep adding water if your lentils aren't soft and give it an occasional stir. Adjust the amount of water according to how thick you like your soup. It would also be just as tasty in a vegetarian form for the record.

I could not believe how easy this was and how lucky I was that it came out so well the first time I tried making it. I am very happy to have this at home waiting for me after a long day at work!