Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Slow Cooker Gourmet - Lewis & Clark Lentil & Sausage Stew Mix

I usually make my soups on the stove-top so this mix of stew/soup that you make in the crockpot, appealed to me.

Don't you just love these "instant" soup mixes where you only need to add the vegetables and meat...oh yeah and the liquids? Hmmm - why not just do it all from scratch? Well I tend to have a hard time getting my soup bases tasting "just right" - so sometimes I like using pre-made mixes to use a base.

This mix seemed a bit pricey at $3.29 but I decided to give it a shot. Well $3.29 plus $1 for the bag of carrots, about $1 for the chicken broth, $1.25 for the kielbasa and $2 for the two cans of bean and bacon soup I added once I tasted the finished product.

I didn't like the soup much at all. The boy said he liked it "except for the carrots"...the girl only ate about 1/2 of hers and I wasn't going to make her finish it knowing that I didn't like it much either.

Now I'd say one problem was that I added about a cup more water than the instructions called for - BUT I later added some instant chicken broth powder to make up for that. The soup had an overpowering taste of sage and the broth seemed very watery and tasteless, hence my adding the two cans of bean and bacon soup.

I've really tried to like lentils but so far I haven't had a whole lot of success with them. But I'm not giving up quite yet!

3 comments:

Heather said...

Try getting red lentils and use an online recipe for red lentil soup. Red lentils are MUCH better than green or brown. Even my "HATES all beans" husband will eat red lentils and even ask for seconds. Lentil soups made with other flavors are an acquired taste and take a while to develop (it took me about 20 tries to decide that yes, I did like them.)

ames said...

My favorite lentils are the red ones too, in Egyptian lentil soup. It's basically chicken broth, onions, garlic, lentils and some seasonings and then you cook it until the lentils disintegrate so it's smooth. I have recipe on my blog, it's delicious with croutons!

CanadianGrandma said...

I am not crazy about lentils, but will eat it occasionally. Perhaps, as Ames says, onions and garlic should improve the flavour.