Pamela Todd's Prairie Winter Lentil Soup

From Pamela Todd:

There is no pleasure that can match a bowl of this soup and some homemade bread on a cold night. It almost makes winter worth enduring. We always make a bone-in ham on Christmas Eve, just so we’ll have a ham bone left to make this soup on boxing day.

 

 The ingredients

3 onions, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes

½ tsp. thyme

1 ½ cups dried lentils, rinsed

1 28 oz. can chopped tomatoes

7 cups of beef broth

Two glasses of cheap red wine from Trader Joe's (one for you and one for the pot)

Ham bone

Pepper to taste

 

The preparation

Sauté the onions and carrots in a little olive oil until the onions are translucent. Then add the remaining ingredients and simmer for about an hour. Lentils don’t need presoaking, but should be cooked until they are tender. Remove the bone, cut any pieces of meat off that you can salvage, and add to the soup. Enjoy.