Rich Lentil Soup

It's getting cold again, and Winter is getting close - so I'm making soups again*... 
Today I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorites, especially when it's really cold and wet - meet my Rich Lentil (and Meat) Soup:

Ingredients:

• 2 Onions in thin slices/stripes
• 2 cups of green Lentils
• 1 Potato
• 1 peeled** frech Tomato in little cubes
• 3 sliced cloves of Garlic
• 1 Carrot in slices
• 1 small piece of Pumpkin in small cubes (could be replaced by a small sweet potato, but then the soup will be sweeter)
• 2 Celery branches with leaves
• 1 piece of Bone with marrow
• 300 gr. meat (cow or mutton). You could replace this by 1 or 2 additional bones instead
• 5 bay-tree ("dafna") leaves
• olive oil
• salt
• 1-2 tea-spoons of Hawayedge***
• (optional) hot pepper
• (optional) Chili pepper

Directions:

• Fry the onions and the carrot in the olive oil until the onion gets yellowish
• Add the garlic and keep frying for a couple more minutes
• Add all the ingredients except for the spices. Cover with water. The lentils will absorb some of the water, so make sure there is enough water.
• Once boiling temperature is achieved, leave it at boiling temperatures for about 2-3 hours. The water should become completely brown and the lentils should start to decompose. Also, most of the tomato's acidity will be gone by then.
• Now add the spices (salt, Hawayedge, hot pepper, Chili pepper), stirr well, wait a couple more minutes for the spices to catch.
• Enjoy!

Notes:

• Of course, you can play with the ingredients. Today, for instance, I used a sweet potato instead of pumpkin and didn't have celery. I also added one zuccini I had in the fridge. It was a huge success.
• The tomato is there to add some acidity. Some people like it even more acid, and use lemon - I prefer it with 1 tomato.
• The thing I like with the pumpkin is that during the cooking it completely desintegrates, making the soup thicker.
• In many cases I find myself taking one large cup of this soup to replace a whole meal (maybe with some bread on the side).

* If you're interested in more of my soups, check out my:
Chicken Bouillon
French Onion Soup
Orange (color) Soup

** To peel a frech tomato make an X shaped cut at it's bottom, and put it in a container with very hot water for a few minutes. You will then be able to peel it effortlessly.

*** Hawayedge is an oriental coctail of spices (originally from Yemen) made of black pepper, cumin, cardamom ("hel"), turmeric ("curcum") and coriander ("cusbara"). Maybe with other things, I wouldn't know - I buy it already made from my spice-man...