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I'll show you how to make a lentil and vegetable soup. Joining me today is [Stroke Assoc].

[Stroke Assoc]: Hello!

Andrea: This is a vegan friendly recipe and it’s a great one for freezing to eat later. We’ve also included some tips at the end for how to thicken this if you have any swallowing difficulties.

The prep for this recipe will probably take between 10-15 minutes. It will then cook for around 30 minutes.

The ingredients are listed in the video description below. But you can see we have red lentils, carrots, celery and leeks. We also have some tomato puree, a few thyme leaves,

garlic, coriander and

bouillon powder.

Andrea: You’ll need a large pan with a lid for this, plus a measuring jug and some spoons, something to stir it with, a sieve, a knife and a chopping board. If you are planning on thickening this recipe, you will also want a blender of some kind.

Andrea: Let’s get started.

We’ll start with chopping up the garlic, carrots, celery and leeks.

[Stroke Assoc]: Does it matter how fine or rough you chop these?

Andrea: It doesn’t really, it’s down to what you prefer and feel confident doing. There are tools as well, like this chopping board I’m using, that can help if you have any problems holding something you are chopping.

Andrea: When you’re done, pop them into your large pan.

[Stroke Assoc]: We had a number of comments from stroke survivors during the planning of this project asking about fatigue. They said that they can’t stand in the kitchen for long periods of time, for example when chopping, what would you suggest?

Andrea: Cook in stages, it doesn’t all have to be done at once. With this recipe, feel free to take a break, have a sit down if you need. Just cover

the veg with the pan lid or a plate to make sure they don’t dry out.

When you’re ready we’re going to rinse out our dried lentils. So we measure them out directly into the seive and then just keep rinsing until that water runs clear.

I’ve already washed these, so you can see that the water is already running clear. Doing this in real time will only take a few minutes.

Andrea: And then pop them into the big pot as well. Add the tomato puree, coriander and thyme leaves, you can use dried thyme as well.

If you want to add a vegetable stock cube or bouillon powder, feel free to do that now. If you’re worried about salt, there are low salt alternatives like the one we’re using. Or you can use

your own homemade vegetable broth.

[Stroke Assoc]: We will link to an easy recipe in case that’s something you’d like to try.

Andrea: So that’s all the ingredients. Now we just add one and a half litres of boiling water and stir.

Then we can cover and leave to simmer for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables and lentils are tender.

Andrea: Now that we’ve let it simmer, you can see that the liquid has thickened a bit.

If you want or need to thicken the soup more, you can do by blending some of it separately. So we’re going to ladle out a third to a half of the soup, depending on how thick you want it. We’re going to put that into our blender and whizz it up.

If you find it hard using a blender with a screw top, you could try the ones with silicone lids that you can pull off or press down. The other thing you could use is a hand blender as they can be operated with one hand. You’ll need a sturdy mixing bowl or large measuring jug so you don’t get spills everywhere.

[Stroke Assoc]: If you do have any issues with swallowing, there are guidelines on our website that are taken from the IDDSI framework that you can use

. The IDDSI stands for the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative.

Andrea: Once

that bit is all blended together, we just pour it back into our soup and it’s ready to serve. You can see that the soup part of this is much thicker now.

You don’t have to do this step at all, if you don’t want to. It all depends on your preferences and dietary requirements.

We can ladle this straight into bowls to eat right now, maybe with a bit of nice bread. Or this is a great recipe for freezing. And you can

scale it up easily if you wanted to make a large batch for freezing.

[Stroke Assoc]: How long would you say it’s safe to keep something like this frozen before using it?

Andrea: Anything we meat, we usually say to use it within 2-3 months. Something like this with no meat, you can extend that to about 3-4 months.

If you do worry about forgetting when that time expires, I would recommend writing the name and date on your container. I’ve also seen people have a little piece of paper on the outside of their freezer just to say what is in there and when it needs to be eaten by.

[Stroke Assoc]: Oh wow, that’s very organised. But it’s also a great idea if you tend to forget about what’s in your freezer and just lose stuff in there. Which is something I’m definitely guilty of from time to time.

Andrea: Exactly.

[Stroke Assoc]: And that’s our lentil and vegetable soup. Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried it out yourself or if you have any questions.

Please like the video and subscribe to our channel if you want to see more content like this. Thanks for watching.