Many days long + new wonderful (vegan!) soup

Whew! Another week is closing in.

Monday I managed to get the Christmas tree up + other decorations.

Tuesday I went to liturgy for St. Nicholas day (new calendar),

went grocery shopping, came home, had food,

got more groceries delivered, and finished setting up the house for Christmas,

set the table for our special 4 person dinner party,

made a pasta dish 

(EVO with mushrooms, baby bok choy, broccoli, lots of garlic, tomato)

and this soup.

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The recipe is as follows:

"Coconut Red Lentil Soup

.... Vegans - you can easily make this vegan by using coconut or olive oil in place of the butter called for.

1 cup / 7 oz / 200g yellow split peas

1 cup 7 oz / 200g red split lentils (masoor dal)

7 cups / 1.6 liters water

1 medium carrot, cut into 1/2-inch dice

2 tablespoons fresh peeled and minced ginger

2 tablespoons curry powder

2 tablespoons butter or ghee

8 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced

1/3 cup / 1.5 oz / 45g golden raisins

1/3 / 80 ml cup tomato paste

1 14-ounce can coconut milk

2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt

one small handful cilantro, chopped

cooked brown rice or farro, for serving (optional)

Give the split peas and lentils a good rinse - until they no longer put off murky water. Place them in an extra-large soup pot, cover with the water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and add the carrot and 1/4 of the ginger. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the split peas are soft.

In the meantime, in a small dry skillet or saucepan over low heat, toast the curry powder until it is quite fragrant. Be careful though, you don't want to burn the curry powder, just toast it. Set aside. Place the butter in a pan over medium heat, add half of the green onions, the remaining ginger, and raisins. Saute for two minutes stirring constantly, then add the tomato paste and saute for another minute or two more.

Add the toasted curry powder to the tomato paste mixture, mix well, and then add this to the simmering soup along with the coconut milk and salt. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes or so. The texture should thicken up, but you can play around with the consistency if you like by adding more water, a bit at a time, if you like. Or simmer longer for a thicker consistency. The thicker this soup got, the more I liked it.

I've been enjoying big ladles of this soup over ~1/2 cup of warm farro (leftover from this Farro & Bean Stew) - brown rice was good as well. Sprinkle each bowl generously with cilantro and the remaining green onions.

Serves 6.

Prep time: 10 min - Cook time: 35 min" 

***

This soup is great! 

This soup takes at least an hour, as it says 30 minutes simmer and then later 20 minutes.

I crossed out what I did not do in the recipe above.

I did mix the curry powder (I did not measure but should of put in a lot more) with coconut oil,

then sauted the rest of the ingredients, adding the tomato paste at the end.  I put this all into the soup,

adding the coconut oil at the same time. 

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It was a lovely meal with great and meaningful conversations,

many books discussed and looked at, 

it was all so very lovely.

We all have very busy and intense lives and to take time out of it

for a meal like this was a real treasure!

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I hope this week has had some beautiful moments for you as well.