Royalty Fast Food

The delicious Slow Cooker Lentil and Ham Soup are the perfect winters warmer. Come home to a richly flavored stew with lentils, ham, and vegetables at the end of the day. It’s a terrific supper when served with cornmeal muffins.

Soup is a mostly liquid cuisine that produces by blending meat or vegetable ingredients with stock, milk, or water and served warm or hot (but may also be cool or cold). Hot soups further distinguish the extraction of tastes from solid components in liquids in a pot, resulting in a broth. Soups and stews are similar, and there may not be a clear distinction between the two in some circumstances; nonetheless, soups have more liquid (broth) than stews.

Soups divide into two categories in traditional French cu isine: clear soups and thick soups. The term bouillon and consommé is used to classify transparent soups in France. Purées vegetable soups thickened with starch; bisques thickened with cream and puréed seafood or vegetables; cream soups thicken with béchamel sauce; and veloutés is thickening with eggs, butter, and cream. Rice, lentils, wheat, and grains are also widely used to thicken soups and broths; many popular soups also include pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, beef, and poultry.

Directions

• In a 3 1/2 quart or larger slow cooker combine the lentils(msoor dal), celery(herb), carrots, onion, garlic and beef ham. Season with basil(tulsi), thyme, oregano, the bay leaf and pepper. Stir in the chicken broth(yakhni), water and tomato sauce. Cover and cook on Low for 11 hours. Discard the bay leaf before serving.

Nutrition Facts

Per Serving:

222 calories;

protein 15.1g;

carbohydrates 26.3g;

fat 6.1g;

cholesterol 19.7mg;

sodium 1169.6mg.