This week I’ve stepped up my photography game. Nothing makes food look more delicious than a well framed, properly lit photograph. I hope you like the new flavor, I’ll keep adding more mouthwatering recipes, but now with even more mouth watering pics to complement them.
Stir crazy?
This past weeks I’ve been cooking a bunch of soups, I love soups because they are easy to prepare, you can hardly go wrong with them, if you have a staple of ingredients and spices. And most of all you really don’t have to be all that much in the kitchen while it simmers and fragrants (my word) you entire apartment 
So today I cooked an adaptation from 101 Cookbooks Coconut Red Lentil Soup but had to swing it my way as usual lol.
I chose to cook the carrots and onions in the curry separately from the soup, while the lentils and beans softened in the water. This is an approach much used in Ayurvedic cooking, where they heat the spices in Ghee (I used vegan butter) prior to adding the onion or other ingredients. I like that approach since it lets the carrots, ginger and onions soak up as much flavor from the curry as possible before going in the pot with the beans. Doesnt it also look tasty?
Red Lentil / Adzuki Bean & Coconut Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Red Lentils
- 1 Cup Adzuki Beans (Cooked at least 40-50 min. or more until almost soft)
- 7-8 Spring Onions
- 1 Medium Carrot sliced
- 2 Tbsp Ginger (minced)
- 2-4 Tbsp Vegan Butter
- 2 Tbsp Curry Powder
- 2 Tbsp Tomato Paste
- 1 14 oz can Coconut Milk
- 3-4 Tbsp Raisins (i used regular raisins, the original recipe states golden)
- 1 Cup Germinated (or other) Brown Rice
- 1-2 Tbsp Cilantro (Garnish)
- 2 tsp Salt & Pepper to taste (I like the salty flavor so I add more around 3-4 tsp salt and 3 tsp pepper)
- 7-8 cups of Water
Directions
- Rinse Lentils and beans separately, and bring the Adzuki Beans to boil in the water. Once boiling turn down heat and simmer for 50 min. or so.
- If the water in the adzuki beans is turning dark brownish, take off from heat and empty out the water without dumping the beans. Add more water (7 cups) to the pot, and add the lentils and bring to a boil again.
- Simmer Lentils and Adzuki beans. Prepare a separate pot with brown rice and cook according to directions. ( this will be used later to serve the soup over)
- While the legumes simmer, heat the butter in a frying pan or skillet. Add the curry and swish it around in the butter until it has mixed properly. Add carrots, ginger and onion and saute in the curry butter for 2 minutes or until the carrots start turning darker orange. Stir the tomato paste in a few tbsp water and add to the pan. Mix well with the other ingredients and saute for another 2 minutes.
- Add the carrots mix to the pot with the lentils, along with the coconut milk and salt & pepper. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes or so until the lentils are softened as well as the adzuki beans.
- Chop the cilantro and taste the soup to see if any final seasoning needs to be added.
- Add a few spoons of brown rice to a bowl, pour some soup over the rice, add some spring onion and cilantro and voila you’re done
- Enjoy.. and thanks to 101 Cookbooks for inspiration, i love her photography, it makes me hungry just to look at the food pics.
