Lentil Soup with Lemon and Rosemary Essential Oils

Today’s recipe for Lentil Soup with Lemon and Rosemary Essential Oils is made with a slow cooker.

Fast life? Get a slow cooker!

It takes the heat off you when you have minimal time for the kitchen.

It turns the heat up on you when you’re cold and desperately seeking comfort food.

A slow cooker is worth its weight in gold for helping you to up the ante on your intake of veges and healthful nutrition when you’re stressed, tired, cranky and just want to pull on your comfiest trackie dacks and dial a pizza.

Keep a freezer full of slow cooker meals, stay one day ahead in remembering to pull one from the freezer into the fridge to defrost overnight, and you’ll never look back.  And this food is so forgiving, if you forget to defrost ahead, you can defrost it in the saucepan on low heat with the lid on.  It just takes a little longer to heat, that’s all.

On a weekend day when you’re feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, chop a bunch of veges, keep some good quality organic stock and pulses on hand in the pantry and get that slow cooker handling a bunch of meals in one go.

Wash your veges well first to be sure to minimise the odds of unwanted residues finding their way into your food.  Young Living Thieves® Fruit & Veggie Soaker and Spray are enhanced with food-quality essential oils and an easy way to take care of this.  (Please click here to get my help with ordering.)

If you have a processor that will handle the chopping, put that to use and save even more time.

Keep a bunch of Young Living’s culinary essential oils in the pantry to add just before serving to whatever you’ve cooked.  Consider them your personal cookery Secret Weapon.  To get your creativity rolling, here’s a handful or so of my personal favourites I reach for often:

• basil
• ginger
• lemongrass
• coriander
• lemon
• rosemary
• thyme
• peppermint (add to melted organic choc for an irresistible choc-mint sauce over coconut ice-cream: scrumptious!)

Please note:  It is imperative that you only add essential oils to food and drinks when indicated on the label that you can do so.  And when buying any oils for any purpose, please do check out their credentials.  Not all oils are created equal.  Quality varies immensely, so please ensure you are choosing a brand with complete transparency from seed to seal, such as Young Living.  Discover why we love them so much in this short video.

Today’s recipe uses hearty and humble lentils as its base.  Lentils are legumes, aka pulses.  Here’s the skinny on lentils and why they are so awesome.

• Low in fat
• High in protein: 26%
• Low in calories but high in nutrients
• They count towards your 5+ serves of veges a day: hooray!
• Rich in folate plus iron and magnesium which help blood and oxygen flow in the body
• A source of insoluble fibre to help maintain a healthy bowel and digestion
• Helpful with blood sugar stability
• Combination of complex carbs and fibre gives sustained slow-burning energy

We’re including optional essential oils in this slow cooker recipe to further enhance the vitality and flavour.   You’ll be adding them at the end to help retain their benefits rather than having them exposed to the heat for a long time.

Lemon essential oil is high in d-limonene (there’s a lot of interest in this compound in the health research world; take a look sometime when your curiosity gets the better of you).  Fun fact: it takes 3000 lemons to create 1 kg of essential oil, cold-pressed from the rind.  This helps make the price vs value of that tiny bottle easy to grasp.  You can check out our top 9 lemon oil tips here.

Rosemary is a culinary herb, but its essential oil is invaluable away from the kitchen as well.  This fresh, uplifting scent is known for remembrance so try inhaling rosemary essential oil next time you’re playing, “I went shopping and I bought …”  Look up your trusty essential oils reference/text book to really delve into its researched properties.

Ssoup without something crusty on the side is like Abbott without Costello!  So we’ve included an Aussie touch with a loaf of wholemeal damper but crossed it with Provence by adding a flavour of — wait for it — lavender essential oil.  Don’t judge until you’ve tried it!

Serve the damper warm with delicious salted butter or dunk chunks into dipping bowls of fresh extra-virgin olive oil and aged balsamic (hello, Tuscany! We’re all over the world today).  Take the leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch — if you can manage to save any!

If the lavender delights you (I’m hoping it will but it’s a wild card), try this damper also as a delicious afternoon tea snack, served warm with butter and a drizzle of authentic maple syrup or golden syrup.  Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Lentil Soup with Lemon and Rosemary Essential Oils

Recipe adapted from Melanie Makes (15 mins prep, 6 hrs cooking)

INGREDIENTS

• 4 carrots, diced
• 1 small sweet potato, diced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 capsicum, chopped
• Good pinch of cayenne pepper
• 3 cups red lentils
• 4 cups organic/free-range chicken broth
• 2 ¾ cups filtered water
• 1 ½ tsps Himalayan or Celtic salt
• 1 lemon, zest and juice (optional extra: 3 drops Young Living Lemon essential oil along with fresh lemon, or 6 drops in place of)
• 1 tblesp fresh rosemary, chopped, or 2-4 drops Young Living Rosemary essential oil (to taste)

PREPARATION

• In an average size (5.7 litre/six quart) slow cooker, add all ingredients except for the lemon zest and juice, rosemary and essential oils
• Cook on LOW for 6 hours
• Stir in lemon zest, juice and rosemary and/or essential oils if using them
• Season with additional salt and pepper to taste
• Ladle into bowls and garnish with a dollop of organic Greek yoghurt and warm damper on the side

WHOLEMEAL LAVENDER DAMPER

Recipe adapted from The Food Coach  (Serves 8 ::: 10 mins prep, 30 mins baking)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups organic wholemeal flour
• 1 cup organic plain white flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 5 tblesp light/fruity extra-virgin olive oil
• ½ cup milk (or appropriate substitute)
• ½ cup filtered water
• 1 pinch Himalayan or Celtic salt
• 3 drops Young Living Lavender essential oil (optional)

PREPARATION

• Preheat the oven to 220C, line a baking tray with baking paper
• Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl
• Add olive oil and combine with a wooden spoon until it resembles bread crumbs
• Make a well in the middle with your spoon
• Add the liquids, including the lavender oil
• Work the dough with a knife just until it leaves the sides of the bowl
• Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board, knead lightly and pat into 15cm round shape
• Place the dough onto the lined tray and cut a 1cm-deep cross in the centre of the damper
• Place in the oven for 10 minutes then reduce the heat to 180C and bake for a further 20 minutes

Enjoy the good oil daily.

The information on this site does not constitute advice. Please consult with your health practitioner. When using any of the products mentioned throughout this site, please be sure to read the labels and follow their suggestions for safe use. We make commissions from sales via many of the products we recommend but we only suggest products we genuinely enjoy and want you to benefit from.

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