We eat a lot of chicken

............ which means we have a lot of chicken leftovers to deal with too. I like making a creamy lemon soup out of the leftovers and recently I discovered a great addition to it. I started using Red Split Lentils thanks to a contract I'm working on. Whole lentils (called futbols in the trade by the way) take too long to cook up. That's a benefit if you want to retain the shape and texture of the lentil. Accordingly you have to reduce your cooking time for the RSLs if you want them to retain their shape but I have now discovered that RSLs are a great way to thicken my lemon chicken soup. They will have completely disappeared into the soup after about 3/4 of an hour.

- put whatever leftover chicken bits you have in a pot with some water & boil them
- I always use the leftover gravy which means that my soup automatically has at the very least rosemary spice. If you don't have gravy then spice accordingly but at a minimum add some pepper, parsley & rosemary.
- add whatever is in the fridge for vegetables - my preference is carrots and/or celery
- add rice - I like to use basmati rice because of the slightly nutty flavour and because it stands up to a longer cooking time which is better for soup because it lets the flavours blend
- add a small amount of RSLs for thickening - we're talking about the amount you can hold in a big handful
- you may have to adjust the order of adding the bits - if you are using regular rice or leftover rice then I'd put it in last with the lemon juice
- once the lentils have disappeared completely, add a couple of glugs of milk and a squirt of lemon juice. Go easy on the lemon juice at first because you can't back up - taste it as you go - the goal is a slightly creamy taste with just a hint of lemon.

Enjoy.