Last night’s dinner was Indian-Spiced Lentil Soup from Vegan Planet. The spice in this soup was subtle and mild, but was distinctly Indian and delicious! We will definitely have this again, but I will bump up the spice just a bit. I very easily found a variation of the recipe posted elsewhere on the Internet, so I think it’s probably OK to post my slight variations here too. I hope you try it and enjoy it! It makes a good-sized pot, so unless you’re serving lots of people you may want to plan to freeze some of it or cut the recipe in half.

Indian-Spiced Lentil Soup

from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson

2 TB canola oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 sweet potato/yam, peeled and diced

One 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (undrained)

1 tsp ginger, peeled and minced

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp cayenne

1 1/2 cups brown lentils (I used green. Use any kind except red.)

6 cups veggie stock

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

In a large pot, saute the onion, celery, garlic and sweet potato in the canola oil or about 10 minutes. When the veggies have softened, add the juice from the can of tomatoes then finely chop the tomatoes and add those too. Stir in the spices, lentils and stock and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 30 minutes. Remove the cover and add the cilantro. Cook an additional 10 minutes. Season with S&P to taste.

To go with our delicious soup, we had some homemade naan. Yes, homemade! I was hoping to be lucky enough to find a premade vegan naan at the store, but no such luck. I wasn’t surprised not to find it, I was just hopeful that I would. I have tried making homemade naan many times in the past and have not had much success, so I was a little nervous attempting it again. On the other hand, I couldn’t dream of having and Indian soup without a naan dipper. I had to go for it!

Many thanks to The Joy of Vegan Baking for bailing me out of my predicament. I followed the naan recipe in there exactly and had the best batch of homemade naan imaginable. The only drawback was that it wasn’t chewy like all of the naan I’ve ever had in restaurants normally is. This turned out more bready, if that makes any sense. It was still delicious, but I will have to spend some time researching what gives traditional naan it’s chewy texture.