Meal plan put on hold for one day...

Actually, I should say two days because yesterday was Thanksgiving. We have a problem with fleas in the house from my sister's cat, Honey. So Honey is now an outside cat at my parents and we "bombed" the house yesterday morning and stayed the night at mom and dad's (this is our second "bombing"- we bombed two weeks ago).

Now we are home and I am taking a break from cleaning in order to post an unplanned for dinner recipe. I have permission from DH that instead of making the little bit more complicated vegetable soup that the children will probably not eat- I can make the super easy lentils:) I know, we are trying to stay away from the lentil soup but I do have permission:) And the children LOVE it!

Here it is...
Lentil Soup (or as we Greeks call it... Faki- yes, you heard me right. And yes, it is pronounced like that infamous four letter word- fun to tell it to your friends when you are in grade school:)
1 cup lentils
1 can tomato paste
1 onion chopped fine (optional- my dad hates cooked onions so I grew up without the onions)
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 stalk celery, chopped fine (optional- dad also does not like celery)
1 clove garlic minced
5 cups water (or water and vegetable broth)
1 tsp salt

sort and wash lentils. Place in deep saucepan and add all ingredients. Cover and bring to boiling. reduce and cook slowly for about 1 1/2 hours (or boil hard for about 1 hour if it's 5pm and you need to eat dinner in an hour and you just didn't have time to prepare your meal earlier in the day because maybe somebody got sick at school and you had to go pick them up and that just totally interfered with your "plan"- hey, it happens sometimes;) Serve with red wine vinegar.

I double this recipe all the time because it freezes so well. I will also sometimes add 1/4 up brown rice (and a little extra water) or cut up two potatoes (dh likes the potatoes- he is of Irish descent, you know) or chop up some carrots.