Rachael Ray's Hungarian Sausage And Lentil Stoup

Total Time: 45 mins Preparation Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 6
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 lbs bulk hot italian sausage
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 portabella mushrooms, gills scraped out, chopped
• 1 cup carrot, shredded
• 1 cup lentils
• 1 large starchy potato, peeled and chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika (or substitute a mix of 2 teaspoons cumin, 1 teaspoon sweet paprika and 2 pinches cayenne pepper)
• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary, intact on stems
• 1 (14 ounce) can chopped fire-roasted tomatoes or 1 (14 ounce) can regular diced tomatoes
• 6 cups chicken stock
• 1 (10 ounce) box frozen spinach, thawed and drained

Recipe

• 1 in a medium sized pot, simmer lentils in chicken stock.
• 2 in a second pot, sauté sausage in olive oil.
• 3 add garlic, onions and mushrooms to the sausage. cook a few minutes, stirring occasionally.
• 4 add carrots, lentils, potato, salt and pepper, bay leaf, paprika (or substitute mixture) and rosemary to sausage pot. don't worry about the woody rosemary stems - the leaves will fall off as it cooks.
• 5 add tomatoes to sausage pot. bring to a good rolling boil and boil for 15 minutes.
• 6 combine the two pots.
• 7 wilt the greens in and remove the rosemary stems. let sit 5 minutes off the heat before serving.