Awesome Almost All Orange Soup

Awesome Almost All Orange Soup

Ingredients:

1 large acorn squash, baked, seeded, and cut into chunks
2 sweet potatoes or yams, baked, peeled, and cut into chunks
1 large onion, chopped
3 large carrots, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cups red lentils
8 cups water
1 tsp. dried rosemary
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper
3 or 4 handfuls fresh spinach (more if you wish) or chopped kale, spines removed
3 zucchini, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
1 bunch cilantro
3 green onions, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Bake acorn squash and sweet potatoes for up to 1 hour, until soft
3. In a large soup pot, over medium high heat, stir-fry onion, carrots, celery, and garlic until onion is soft and carrots are beginning to soften.  Add a little water if anything seems to stick. (to save time, skip this step and go straight to step 4.)
4. Add red lentils, 8 cups of water, rosemary, and crushed red pepper.  Increase heat to high and bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat to low and simmer 20 mins, until lentils have almost all dissolved.
5. Add acorn squash and sweet potatoes to the pot and mash into the soup. (A potato masher works well.) Cook 10 mins more.
6. Add spinach and stir into the soup until it wilts.  If you use kale, it needs to cook a little longer than spinach.
7. Stir-fry zucchini in a nonstick pan over high heat until just beginning to brown, add red pepper and stir-fry 1-2 mins. more. (If you are in a hurry, you may omit this step; add uncooked zucchini and red pepper in step 6.)
8. Add cilantro and green onions before serving.

(From the book, "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease" by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. pg. 188)

Submitted by: Kim W.