Roast Tomato and Red Lentil Soup

My favourite soup recipe, recovered! Woohoo! I lost it - I was sure it was in my notebook, but no. I remember posting it on a bulletin board, but I got banned there. (Long story; if you fancy a bit of netdrama it's part of the IIDB debacle) Beth thought she had it, and very helpfully sent me three similar recipes, none of them quite the same as my fave. But finally I tracked it down in an old sent-email folder. Here it is for your delight. This is a most excellent soup.

We're having a variant on it tonight, because I couldn't find the recipe and improvised. I only had about 650g of tomatoes, and I used more lentils. And I forgot about halving the tomatoes, which does matter as you get more caramelised flavours. It's still good, but not the excellent balance I remember.

I expect we'll have some cheese toasts on the side, to make it more dinner-ish. Or just plain cheese and crackers. We have a lot of good cheese around, for some reason...

Recipe: Roast Tomato and Red Lentil Soup
1kg tomatoes.
1 litre good vegetable stock
180g red lentils
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil (or just a teaspoon works)
2 tsp oregano
salt, pepper

Halve the tomatoes, arrange in a single layer on a deep sided baking dish, roast in a moderate (160C) oven for 40 minutes. They should be well done, but not dried.

Gently fry the onion & garlic in the oil until onion is golden. Add the lentils (washed & picked over as needed), stock, tomatoes and oregano. Also add any juices from the bottom of the tomato baking dish. I slip the skins off my tomatoes, which is a little extra work but not much. I'm a bit weird about tomato skins.

Simmer until lentils are done - these are the type that go to mush, not the whole ones. Run through a blender to get a smoothish texture. Thin down with water or more veggie stock to your desired consistency, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Easy!