hearty soups II: french lentil stew with roasted carrots and mint

Synne made this recipe a while back and told me it's a good one. It's a basic French Lentil soup with the addition of mint, lemon, harissa, and oven-roasted carrots and onions. It's amazing that something so simple (roasting the onions in the oven and not sauteing them) can make such a difference. They smelled so sweet - the whole apartment smelled amazing as they were roasting.

french lentil stew with roasted carrots and mint

 ingredients:
1.5 lbs carrots (about 5 depending on size)
1.5 lbs yellow onions (about 4 medium)
4 T olive oil
1.5 t sea salt
1 generous cup French green lentils (.5 lb)
4 cups light vegetable broth
1 generous T chopped fresh mint, or 1.5 tsp dried
1-2 T fresh lemon juice
1-2 tsp harissa (or other chile salsa/sauce/paste)

Preheat oven to 375.

1. Prep carrots and onions: Cut carrots and onions in fairly large pieces, about 1 inch long and 1/2 inch wedges for the onions. Toss the carrots in a bowl with oil, salt and pepper, and spread on baking sheet.  Do the same with onions, on a separate baking sheet. They will roast sooner and need more stirring than the carrots. Cook until soft and brown, about 45-60 minutes. Let them cool and then chop them coarsely

2. Make lentils: Meanwhile, combine the washed green lentils in a large soup pot with 4 cups of water and 1 tsp salt. Bring to boil, then lower and simmer 25 minutes, until lentils are tender but still firm.

3. Combine rest of ingredients: Add chopped roasted vegetables, vegetable broth, mint, 1 T lemon juice, and harissa or chipotle sauce to taste. Simmer another 10 minutes, then taste and reseason. Add broth if you want it more soupy and less stewy.

Serving ideas from Anna Thomas: olives, grilled halloumi and baguette.
Recipe from Love Soup by Anna Thomas. 

By the way, we did a big stocking-up grocery trip to get the ingredients for four big pots of soup/stew, plus some pantry essentials. So it was a bit of sticker shock to see the grocery bill. Two of the soups have meat, which made the bill a little higher as well. Anyways, I was interested to calculate how much each soup cost, partially to make the point that it's cheaper to eat at home, even when you're getting nice ingredients. I totaled the cost of this soup and it came to about $9.00! Which means, if it serves six, about $1.50 a dish. Pretty good. :) And yesterday's stew, with pork and chorizo, was about $16.73, so about $2.70 a serving.