Lentil Escarole Soup

Continuing on the theme of Glorious Kale, I was in a cooking frenzy last night and made a variation on this Lentil Escarole Soup from The Postpunk Kitchen. It's the first time I've cooked with escarole, and I'm pretty happy with it. Like all green leafy vegetables, you'll want to wash it completely — there's a lot of dirt and grit in a head of escarole.

    Ingredients for my variation (I doubled the recipe, roughly):
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 4 small carrots, chopped
  • 1-1/2 c. green lentils
  • 1 14.5 oz can of peeled chopped tomatoes, no salt added
  • 1 head escarole, washed completely, large stalky bits removed, chopped
  • 1 c nutritional yeast

Sweat the onion, garlic and carrots in olive oil until tender. Add the lentils and tomatoes, a little salt and pepper and 9 cups of water. Note: remember in the Glorious Kale recipe when I said to keep the liquid at the bottom of the steamer from making that dish? This is why, I used that for about 1-1/2 cups of the water I added. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes. Add the escarole and nutritional yeast, cook for an additional five minutes or so.

Freezes well, tasty with croutons.