Red Lentils and Okra Soup

You know, you grow up thinking you hate certain foods -- eggplant, liver, olives, lentils, okra. And then one day, you find yourself blogging about how great they are, especially when combined into one dish! OK, so I hav never had liver, and I still really dislike olives, but here I am promoting a dish made up primarily of lentils (which I used to find dry and boring) and okra (which I used to find stringy and gross). When prepared right, lentils are dry or boring, and okra isn't stringy and mushy -- they're delicious! And, when paired together, quite tasty and healthy.

I got this recipe for Red Lentils and Okra Soup from the website Appetite for China, a very interesting blog I recently stumbled upon (I particularly love her subtitle: "1.3 billion people must be eating something right.")

Red Lentils and Okra Soup

Appetite for China, Diana Kuan

1/2 cup red lentils, rinsed and picked through
1 cup okra, chopped
1/2 large red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
Handful tortilla chips (opt)

Bring 4 c water to a boil. Add lentils and simmer, uncovered, until beans are tender, about 20 minutes.

While cooking the lentils, heat oil in a skillet. Add onions and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add okra and cook until onions finish caramelizing, about 5-7 more minutes. Add okra and onions to the cooking lentils. Stir in spices. Serve, garnished with the tortilla chips, if using. (I didn't have any tortilla chips in the house, so I actually made biscuits instead and used those for dunking and dipping.)

Farm box ingredients used:okra, red onion,