Non-vegetarian lentil soup

There was a time in my life that I was vegetarian. As someone who now butchers my own chickens, and fillets my own fish, it seems like a lifetime ago.

During that time, I wasn't the healthiest eater-- quite the contrary actually. I relied heavily on dairy Non-vegetarian lentil soupproducts and eggs to supplement what I wasn't getting from meat and as a result ended up less healthy than when I started. When my doctor diagnosed me with high cholesterol, that was the last straw. I was depriving myself of things like succulent prime rib, and guilt-inducing bacon and I had high cholesterol.

I threw in the towel and rejoined the ranks of the carnivores, or as one of my stepsons likes to say "meat-a-tarians." Hubby, who is a personal trainer by day, once explained to the boy that there was no such thing.

The conversation went a little like this:

Boy: "Dad, if vegetarians are people who only eat vegetables, what do you call someone who only eats meat?"

Husband: "Dead. They don't live long enough to give them a name."

End of conversation.

Can you tell we were struggling to get him to eat his vegetables? Anyhow, that was a couple of years ago, and I'm proud to say that, despite his ongoing aversion to tomatoes, he's a pretty good veggie eater otherwise.

The following soup is not vegetarian. But it could be. You'd just have to leave out the bacon and replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock. You know, take out all the flavour. And what fun would that be?

French-inspired lentil soup

Ingredients

1 cup lentils

2 small carrots

1 red pepper

1 small cooking onion

1 clove of garlic

1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste

4 strips of bacon

1 900 ml container of chicken stock

2-3 sprigs of thyme

1 bay leaf

10 grape tomatoes

Prep

Dice carrots, onion and red pepper. Mince garlic. Slice grape tomatoes into quarters. Cut bacon into small strips.

Cook 

Fry until toasty brown in a stock pot. Remove bacon from pot, leaving drippings. Reserve bacon. Add onion, carrots and pepper into pot, cook until softened. Stir in garlic and tomato paste. Continue to cook for another couple of minutes until tomato paste starts to brown. Deglaze with stock. Add lentils, thyme, and bay leaf. Simmer over low heat until lentils are cooked through, stirring infrequently, so as to not break up lentils.

Add cherry tomatoes and cook for another couple of minutes. Remove thyme stems and bay leaf. Garnish with bacon. Serve.