This recipe is adapted from Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook, a fantastic collection of recipes from the famous restaurant on Vancouver Island. I can’t recommend this book enough – I usually scour the internet for sure-fire recipes with 4-5 star reviews, but with books, I find each recipe can be very hit and miss. Almost everything I’ve made in here has been fabulous, and it was a while before I even noticed it was vegetarian.

The key is the lemon, rosemary, and feta. A twist on this recipe would be mint instead of rosemary, but I haven’t tried that yet. I rarely have fresh herbs on hand, especially in the winter, so I use 1 1/2 tsp of rosemary and 2 tsp of dried oregano and omit sprinkling the extra rosemary on top the recipe calls for at the end.

ADVERTISEMENT

I’ve replaced the carrots the recipe originally called for with beets, because I think they pair very well with the lemon flavor, and I chose golden beets so everything didn’t turn a bright shade of pink. The recipe calls for no-salt homemade vegetable stock, but I don’t have time for that, so I replaced it with just water since this recipe works for 6-12 month old babies. The feta that I top it with at the end is enough salt for me as an adult.

It can be pureed for babies and adults alike, or left chunky. For kids 6-8 months with a palmar grasp that can feed themselves, I would cut the beets into sticks. For babies with pincer grasp 7-8 months and up, the beets can be diced into small cubes.

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 cups red lentils
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large yellow onion, diced
  • 8 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 roasted or steamed golden beets, diced or cut into sticks
  • 1 tsp cracked pepper
  • 1/4 tsp red chili flakes (optional)
  • 1 Tbsp fresh minced rosemary or 2-3 Tbsp fresh mint
  • 2 Tbsp fresh minced oregano
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 8 cups water
  • zest of 1/2 a lemon
  • juice of 2 lemons
  • 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 2 tsp minced rosemary or 4 tsp fresh mint for garnish

Rinse lentils in a bowl thoroughly with several washes of cold water and drain.

Heat oil in large soup pot over medium-high heat and saute onion until translucent. Add garlic, beets, pepper, chilies, herbs, and bay leaves. Stir well and saute 1-2 minutes. Add rinsed lentils and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook partially covered until lentils are soft and falling apart, about 15 minutes.

Soup can be left as is, or pureed without the bay leaves.

Season the soup with lemon zest and lemon juice. Spoon into bowls and top with feta cheese, fresh rosemary (or mint), and fresh ground pepper.