Frugal Vegetarian Recipe Wednesday-->Lentil Stew

I've been a lifelong vegetarian. Never eaten meat. Except a bit of bologna that I didn't know was meat when I was 3 or 4.
Anyway, I get a bit kick out of making frugal vegetarian recipes. I love to think that something cost me just $2 to make and then lasts for a couple of meals. I've been experimenting a lot recently and so I thought that I would share my recipes. One every Wednesday. This is the first.

Frugal Vegetarian Recipe #1-->Lentil Stew
Ingredients
1/2 onion
2T olive oil
1 can of tomatoes
3/4 cup of lentils
2 cups water
2T garlic powder
1t basil
1t rosemary
1t savory
1t parsley

(If you don't have some of those spices, you can eliminate them. No biggie.)

Directions
1. Cut up the onion and sautee it in a a pan on medium-high heat. If you like onions, you can use a whole onion. I'm not a huge fan, but I like a little taste of it, so I use just half.
2. When the onion is cooked, add the can of tomatoes, the lentils, water, and spices.
3. Cover the pan and bring the contents to a boil.
4. After it's reached a boil, turn the heat down to low.
5. Let it simmer, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes. You want it to form a nice thick stew, not watery. So if there's too much water, let it cook a bit longer.
6. Serve either by itself or over rice.

Note: Do not add salt to this while it's cooking. Salt makes lentils tough.

This saves well. It almost tastes better the next day.
You can also make this in a crockpot by just adding all the ingredients and cooking on low all day.