Curried Lentils with Lemon

I suddenly started craving this five and a half years after the one and only time I'd made it. I can't find the original recipe anywhere, just the picture I posted of it back in 2007. It turned out great, full of the flavors I'd remembered, and stronger than I would have liked it back then due to the addition of extra lemon and extra curry near the end. I don't know if I'll ever find the original recipe, but I'm posting ours here so I don't have to re-invent it again some time in 2017.

Curried Lentils with Lemon
2 cups red lentils
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 large onion (or two small onions), chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots or a handful of baby carrots, chopped
1/2 cup canned crushed or diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 cup frozen spinach
1 Tbsp curry powder
2 bay leaves
1 lemon, cut into rings
Olive oil
Salt to taste

Sweating the onion and garlic in a little bit of olive oil, in the bottom of a large stock pot. When they just start to get fragrant, add the celery and carrots and cook until the onion starts to turn translucent. Add the curry powder and stir for 1min. Add in the broth, the tomatoes and spinach, the bay leaves and the sliced lemon and bring up to a simmer. Add in the lentils, cover and cook to your preferred done-ness. (Our lentils absorbed a lot of water before they cooked fully, so I ended up adding about 2.5 cups of water about 30min into the cook time.) Total cooking time was about 40min.

Remove the lemon slices and the bay leaves. Salt to taste. I wanted ours a bit more curried and a bit more lemony, so I added another teaspoon of curry powder and two tablespoons of lemon juice.