Middle Eastern Lentils in Broth

 We're sticking with the lentil theme for another recipe. It turns out that making lentils really tasty is one of my super powers. Who knew?

One way to really extract flavor from simple vegetable ingredients is by sautéing them down before you begin creating the broth. It's a little bit of extra time, but the pay off well exceeds the effort. 

Recipe Ingredients
1 poblano pepper, small slices
6 cloves garlic, thin slices
2 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1 serrano, seeded and minced
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
Spinach and Arugula

1/3 cup dry lentils
2 tbls olive oil
3 1/2 cups of water
1 tbl salt
1 tbl ras el hanuot 

The salt and ras el hanout amounts look high, but there are a lot of ingredients and there is a lot of water. It's just a lot of food, so it needs a lot of seasoning. 

Start by cooking down the various peppers and salt in a large sauce pot, uncovered over medium high heat . When the peppers start to make noise add the oil. Stir to coat the peppers with the oil.

Let them cook down for 5 minutes and then add the garlic and ras el hanout..

Continue cooking for 5 more minutes. Then add the tomatoes. 

Allow this mixture to cook until the tomatoes begin to get mushy. 

Now add 2 cups water and simmer for at least 10 minutes.

Add lentils. Cover. Cook until the lentils are tender. Adding another 1 1/2 cups water once the first batch of water is mostly absorbed. 

Next add your spinach and arugula. A few handfuls of each. Stir that into the mixture, cover again and simmer a few more minutes or until the greens are nicely wilted and bright green. 

Enjoy your very tasty lentils.