Appetizers / Soups / Salads

Soup Lentil Ground Meat takes several minutes to prepare.

Soup Lentil Ground Meat takes several minutes to cook.

Soup Lentil Ground Meat makes 8 servings.

The ingredients for Soup Lentil Ground Meat are:

1 lb. lean ground beef (use beef with less than 10% fat for South Beach Diet)
2 tsp. olive oil (or more, depending on your pan)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1 T minced garlic or garlic puree (or less if you don't like garlic as much as I do)
1 T dried parsley
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
4 cups homemade beef stock (or use 2 cans beef broth, low sodium recommended)
2 cups homemade chicken stock (or use 1 can chicken broth, low sodium recommended)
2 cups water, plus more as needed
2/3 cup brown lentils
1/2 cup finely chopped carrots
1/2 cup brown rice OR Pasta (I used Uncle Ben's whole grain brown rice, which I really like)
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 T balsamic vinegar (optional, but it adds a lot of flavor)

Here is how you make Soup Lentil Ground Meat:

Heat 1 tsp. olive oil in heavy frying pan, add ground beef and cook until meat is well browned, using a turner to break up into small pieces. Remove meat to heavy soup pot.Add another tsp. olive oil to frying pan and add onions and celery and saute 3-5 minutes, until vegetables are starting to soften. Add garlic, dried thyme, ground cumin, and dried parsley and saute 1-2 minutes more.Add vegetables to soup pot with meat, and rinse out frying pan with the 2 cups of water and add to soup pot. Add beef stock, chicken stock, lentils, and chopped carrots to pot and cook at a very low simmer about 60 minutes, or until lentils are quite soft. Taste soup and decide whether to add a small amount of water. (There should be quite a bit of liquid, and the broth should be flavorful but not too strong tasting. If there isn't very much liquid or broth seems too strong add more water at this point.)Add brown rice and continue to simmer soup 30-40 more minutes, or until rice is done but still a bit chewy. Season to taste with salt and fresh ground black pepper (I did not add salt.) Stir in balsamic vinegar if desired. Serve hot.This soup freezes well. You may need to add more liquid when the soup is reheated, because some will be absorbed by the rice.Serving Size:?6

The nutritional information for Soup Lentil Ground Meat is:

• Servings Per Recipe: 8
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 233.7

• Total Fat: 7.3 g
• Cholesterol: 30.5 mg
• Sodium: 362.2 mg
• Total Carbs: 22.4 g
• Dietary Fiber: 5.3 g
• Protein: 17.5 g