Lentils with Barley and Veggies

When I quit my job eight months ago, I had no idea how much time I would spend meal planning,  Meal planning is serious business.

My weekly meal planning routine

I also had no idea I would finally learn to enjoy cooking good, healthy food.  I started making lentils by copying my mother-in-law's recipe.  I've since made several pots of lentils, and I think I've finally mastered my own version.  The recipe below requires some prep work, but the result has lots of flavor, is packed with unprocessed ingredients, and is low in sodium, sugar, and fat.  Enjoy!

Lentils with Barley and Veggies

1 cup uncooked lentils

6 cups homemade vegetable broth

1 green bell pepper, diced

2-3 medium carrots, diced

1/2 - 1 whole onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, smashed

1 cup cooked barley

Salt to taste

1.  Pour broth into large saucepan, add lentils, and bring to a boil.  Turn the temperature down and simmer covered until the lentils are soft, about 20 minutes.  Monitor the lentils because you may have to add additional broth.  The lentils should always remain covered in liquid.

2.  While the lentils are simmering, dice the carrots, bell pepper, and onion.  Onion, bell pepper, and carrot sizes vary greatly.  Adjust quantities so that you have roughly equal parts onion, carrot, and bell pepper.  Cook the onion, carrot and bell pepper with the smashed garlic cloves in a skillet with some olive oil until the veggies are tender.

Chopped veggies ready to cook.

3.  Add the cooked veggies to the soft lentils.  Add one cup of cooked barley.  I recommend cooking the barley in vegetable broth.  Barley takes approximately 45 minutes to cook, so start the barley first if you do not have any cooked barley on hand.

4.  Let the final lentil mixture simmer for 5-10 minutes before serving.  Salt to taste. Add additional vegetable broth to thin out the soup as desired.  

Mmmmm.

I like to eat lentils with bread fresh from my bread machine.  Katy likes to eat lentils with her hands. This girl LOVES her lentils.