Cascia Lentil Soup

Lentil soup is a tasty and easy-to-make dish, perfect for cold autumn and winter days.

Ingredients:
500 g Cascia lentils (does not need to be soaked), 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery, 1 potato, 1 large tomato (a little tomato puree is also fine), 100 g sweet or smoked bacon, ½ glass of wine, rosemary to taste, salt and pepper to taste. olive oil to taste

Procedure:
In a large saucepan, prepare a sauté with a little olive oil and the celery, carrot and onion, well chopped. Once the fry has browned, add the diced bacon and fry it for a couple of minutes. Now add the lentils (lentils do not need to be soaked), the diced potato and tomato and a sprig of rosemary and cook for a couple of minutes, just long enough for the ingredients to take on flavour in the frying pan. Deglaze with the half glass of wine. Once the alcoholic part of the wine has evaporated, add enough hot water to cover all the ingredients well, season with salt and pepper to taste and cook the soup over a low flame for about 45 minutes. The amount of water to be added varies according to your taste, depending on how 'brothy' you want the soup to be; my advice is not to add too much at the beginning of the cooking time but to add it if the soup should 'dry out' too much. When the soup is ready, enjoy it simply, perhaps with a drizzle of raw oil and some croutons, or use it as a base for a good pasta dish.