Pretty and Tasty Soup Girl Creations

Soup Girl, you were busy last year and sent your wonderfully enthusiastic mother in your place to represent you at Barrie's Savour The Flavours Show. She gifted me two beautiful jars of artfully arranged soup ingredients, and allowed me to choose my flavours - Curried Cashew and Spicy Coconut Lentil. Very soon afterwards, my daughter and I broke out the Curried Cashew and made a delicious lunch with it. Oh oh - I meant to take pictures of that! It was so good that all thoughts of photography and blogging went out the window.

So the pretty jar of Spicy Coconut Lentil sat for quite a few months more on a shelf with collector tins, antique cookie cutters and vintage soda bottles. I almost forgot that it was not a knick-knack but actually food. As Savour The Flavours is fast approaching again, I thought I better try out the soup that Soup Mama so kindly gave me.

All you really need for this soup is the contents of the jar, water and coconut milk which is optional. The ingredients themselves are vegetarian, made from 75% Canadian ingredients and very high in protein, fibre and iron. This particular flavour contains 2 kinds of lentils, brown rice, unsweetened coconut, sea salt, chili pepper and other spices. My husband got the idea that shrimp might be a good addition to the soup, so we sauteed some cocktail shrimp in garlic butter ... Heaven forbid an entirely vegetarian dinner!

The soup needs to simmer for one hour in order to soften the lentils, so during that time I baked a loaf of artisan bread that had been resting on my counter-top for 24 hours.  Fresh bread and hot soup - yes please! Thank you www.itsalwaysautumn.com  for my new favourite, ridiculously easy bread recipe.

The result was a lovely, creamy and delicately spiced soup. Despite the name, Spicy Coconut Lentil, this soup was not hot at all. Warming yes, but nothing my fair weather, British-bred taste buds couldn't handle - I fully admit that I can tolerate little more heat than the average infant. My husband might actually be worse. So, in the words of Goldilocks, Soup Girl's soup was "just right."