Monday

Bree's lentil soup (recipe in the comments)
Grainy bread and butter
Butter lettuce salad with baked goat cheese, dried cherries, and pecans

Hot tea
English toffee
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It was gloriously warm here today, but has turned rainy and the temperatures are dropping, prefacing a decent size snow fall over the next couple of days. Soup was an ideal dinner choice. Somehow lentil soup; though warm and perfect for this cold, damp night; reminds me of spring - a reminder I need in these early March days! This is a recipe we've had for a long time and that we both really like. The standard procedure is to saute everything and then simmer for an hour. This makes it a less than ideal dinner for a weeknight, and I have long wanted to convert it into a slow cooker recipe. Tonight was the night and I cannot believe how much better this is as a crock pot soup! I was simply hoping for more convenient prep, but the slow cooking really allowed the flavors to marry and made an incredibly tastier end product. Fantastic! The baked goat cheese was another new experiment. We sliced goat cheese and briefly broiled it to brown and then let it cool to room temp. Another success!

Prep Notes
Difficulty: Long unattended simmering (in a crock pot or on the stove), but super easy prep.
Chopping: Onion, garlic, goat cheese
Time: 20 minutes prep; 1, 4, or 8 hours of cooking
Make ahead: This is excellent leftover and makes a huge amount, so it's great to freeze.

Reaction
J: "I can't believe this is SO much better!"
M: "Chevre me timbers and lentil it be!"