With Apologies to MasterCard

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 8 hours
Eating time: Worthless

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It reminds me of something I read in a food writing anthology recently (more about my love of the genre later) about a woman on the prairie in the 19th century who regularly cooked for a horde of farm laborers. She was taken out of her house screaming, "And they ate it all in 15 minutes!"

I get it. But at least her eaters actually ate. Mine can turn up their noses at dinner in seconds.

There's never any telling what will fly and what won't, though I should have known that Hamburger (or for DS "hamgurmer") Lentil Soup wouldn't work for DD, who abhors legumes. But it had ground turkey which is a staple. She managed to pick every single little lentil off her spoon before eating the bite. Which means of course that eating time wasn't "worthless" at all. Not that I think she actually got a meal's worth of food.

Good thing I liked it.

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Hamburger Lentil Soup

1 lb. ground beef (we used turkey)
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 cups lentils, washed and sorted
4 carrots, diced
3 ribs of celery, diced
4 cups tomato juice (we used 28 oz diced tomatoes)
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Saute ground meat and onion. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook for 4-6 hours on high or 8-10 hours on low.

Adapted from Fix it and Forget It Slow Cooker Recipes