End-of-the-month soup

This recipe is for those grim weeks when your pesky parents haven’t advanced next month's allowance and you have no dollars left to buy food. Alternatively you can use it when you’ve been spending too lavishly on creamy-soft leather satchels and dubious designer haircuts.

Beware, though. This soup is just like oysters. If there’s no R in the month, do not eat it. That's because it's a vacation month, so your pesky parents should be providing for you directly – from bourgeois emporia or overpriced gastropubs.

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 6 ounces of red lentils
• 1 400-gramme can of tomatoes (doesn’t matter if it’s a bit bigger)
• A knob of butter (or a zizi of oil)
• A stock cube
• Herbs and/or spices – try cumin (ground or seeds), ground coriander (tastes nothing like the leaf, honest!), curry powder or other mixture (such as garam masala), basil, oregano, thyme... whatevs
• Salt and pepper

The cupboard really was bare

Method

Takes 40 minutes or so and lasts for at least three meals (unless you have company)

Slice up the onion and fry it gently in butter or oil in a medium saucepan. After about 5 minutes it should be transparent. Now add the lentils and toast them for a bit. If using spices, fling in about a teaspoon of them now and fry gently with the lentils for a minute or so. Pour in the can of tomatoes, then use the tin to measure out three cansful of water. Fling them in too. Bring to the boil, add the stock cube (and dried herbs if using) and stir. Then simmer on a low heat with the lid on for about half an hour – or until the lentils have turned to a comforting mush. If using fresh herbs (yes, unlikely I know, but you might have a droopy basil plant on your windowsill) add them at the end and simmer for another minute or two. Then blend with your hand blender. Or not as the case may be.  Adjust the taste with salt’n pepper and the consistency with water if you want to.

Soup simmering

Soup blended

Serving suggestion

How many differences can you spot?

Variants

1. Fling in any tired vegetables that may be lurking with intent to go mouldy at the bottom of your fridge.
2. If feeling really poor, leave out the tomatoes and measure the water with something other than the empty can.
3. If feeling really, really poor leave out the tomatoes, use less water, call it dal and eat with Tesco Everyday Value rice (6p a serving) or the Canadian equivalent.

Tip of the week

You can eat this any time in the month, not just at the end. Alternatively eat it all month long and spend the money you save on coiffing your lovely locks or quaffing many fine artisanal beers.

Bonus: joke of the week

What did the maple tree say to the slouching basil plant?

Syrup!

What did the basil plant reply?

Quit pesto-ing me.

OK, I'll get my coat and go to the gastropub.