It’s saturday, and saturday has been stew or soup day since my childhood. It snowed again this morning, and that had me craving something hearty and filling. I always preferred lentil over pea soup, but I was the only one in my family who thought that way, so lentil soup saturdays were rare. Good thing I’ve had my own kitchen since I was 19 and can cook whatever I want, whenever I want it.

We don’t do that much with celery over here, you can’t even get it in every supermarket, celeriac is way more popular for soups or stew bases. But nobody needs a whole celeriac for a weekly soup, so there are soup veggie packs available in every supermarket. The veggies are either stuffed into a small cardboard box or just bound with rubber bands. Those packs usually contain a few carrots, a piece of celeriac, a piece of leek and a bit of curly parsley. I weighed the pack I used in the soup, so you can use your own veggies from the garden.

For 4 hearty portions, you need:

• clarified butter
• 50g bacon bits
• 350g carrots
• 150g celeriac
• 150g leeks
• 1 1/2 liters veggies broth
• 250g brown lentils
• 350g potatoes
• salt to taste
• vinegar to taste
• smoked sausage or wieners

Melt a bit of clarified butter in a 4 quart stockpot and fry the bacon bits until crumbly. Add the carrot, celeriac and leeks and roast them until they start to color a bit and smell amazing.

Add the broth and the lentils and cook for 40 minutes total. If you use raw, smoked sausage, poke it with a fork and add it as well. You can cut it up later.

Add the raw potatoes 20 minutes before the end so they don’t get mushy.

If you use already cooked potatoes, it’s enough if you just heat them up in the finished soup with the cut up wieners.

Season to taste with a bit of salt and a splash of vinegar. I need about 1-2 Tbsp red wine vinegar for a pot like this.

Enjoy your soup with a piece of bread and make sure to get a 2nd helping.