Lentil Soup with Turmeric and Coconut Milk

I saw this recipe for a lentil soup with tumeric & coconut milk on Facebook the other day. One of my friends posted it.

It is from the website Healthy Holistic Living.  On the recipe page, they say that this is a powerful soup that can help treat 7 different ailments….well, I don’t know about that. But I do know that I made this soup & it is very tasty & delicious. I must make it very clear that I am in no way saying that this soup will help any medical issue. I am always very leery of any claims about health that are outside the conventional medical community. So just make this soup to enjoy the taste of it & don’t think that it will do anything other than taste good! I am uneducated in conventional medicine & holistic medicine so my only interest is in tasty good food!!! 

Here is the recipe

Lentil Soup with Turmeric & Coconut Milk

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 carrots, diced

3 stalks celery, diced

2 cloves garlic  *** the original recipe called for more but that was too much for me so I used 2

2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 cup red lentils, rinsed

4 cups vegetable stock

2 cups spinach fresh *** if you want to use frozen spinach use a lot less! It depends on how your frozen spinach is packaged, in blocks or balls or chunks!! So just use your judgement regarding the amount of frozen spinach.  It is very difficult to measure unless it is defrosted 

1 can coconut milk

salt & pepper to taste

Method

1. In a medium size sauce pan, big enough to hold 5 cups of liquid… saute the diced onion until it starts to soften
2. Add the carrots & celery & continue cooking until they soften
3. Put the garlic, turmeric, cumin & paprika in, stir to coat all the vegetables with the spices & the spices become fragrant
4. Add the lentils, mix well
5. Put the vegetable stock in & stir.
6. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer & cook the soup until the vegetables & lentils are soft. I cooked mine for about an hour…& the lentils kind of disintergrated….but we liked it actually…
7. If your soup is too thick, mine was, I added 1/2 cup of water….
8. Add the spinach & coconut milk. Stir to incorporate it into the soup
9. At this point I kept my soup on simmer so that the spinach was soft & we were waiting to eat so it just continued to cook…..

We ate almost the whole pot! 3 of us! It was very delicious.

Enjoy!