Lentil Stew

This is actually the lunch lady's sister. I recently took a lentil stew recipe and added a few twists to make it my own. It was a big hit with my boyfriend (who I think is hard to impress!) so I wanted to share it with everyone. I'm a big fan of www.allrecipes.com to get ideas for creations so when I decided I wanted to make a lentil soup/stew I went there to first learn how to cook lentils. I found a really great recipe called Argentine Lentil stew and it struck my interest because it contained barbeque sauce, which I thought sounded quite tasty. My stew ended up a bit more soupy, but it was still delicious. I cooked a cup of lentils in about a quart of water (I didn't measure, probably why it was a little runnier) and then I added carrots, one onion, a poblano pepper, a couple chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, a can of chick peas and one apple. For my barbeque sauce, I filled a 1/4 cup almost full of barbeque sauce and then I added some of the adobo sauce from the chipotle peppers. Then I added pepper, cumin, cayenne pepper, oregano and a lot of salt! I used two types of salt (they can found at giant eagle), smoked salt and pink himalayan salt. I don't really know if it made a difference but I'd like to think it did. After letting it simmer for a while I noticed it wasn't really that thick so I added about a half cup or so of applesauce and a cornstarch and water mixture. That helped with the texture. Even as a soup, this was really tasty! And it's super easy to make your own!