Sam Sanders is VPR's senior production engineer, and also one of VPR's very first employees. "A favorite of mine is lentil soup. It's very easy and no-fail. There is no family history to this recipe, I just kind of made it up. What I like about it is that it's simple, fast, healthy (and vegetarian) — and it's almost impossible to mess up!"

olive oil or butter
2-3 onions, chopped
2 cups of lentils (or more)
3 stalks celery, chopped (or more or less)
3 carrots, chopped (or more or less)
3 potatoes, chopped (or more or less)
vegetable stock or water
lemon
salt and pepper to taste
dried chickpeas, soaked for 8 hours (optional)

Saute a few onions in a small amount of butter (or oil) at the bottom of the pot. As the onions are browning, pour in about 2 cups water (or stock) and stir things around. Add some more water (about 8 cups), and throw in a couple of cups of lentils (or more). Cook on a low flame for about 45 minutes.

In the meantime, slice three stalks of celery and three carrots, and cut three potatoes into bite-sized chunks. Add them to the soup. They need to cook for about a half-hour. (The quantities of these vegetables are not critical.)

Add more water at any time if the soup seems too thick for you — I like really thick soup! Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a squeeze of lemon per bowl (very important).

To enrich the soup even more, pre-soak some dried chickpeas for about 8 hours before you start cooking the lentils, and include the chickpeas along with the lentils.