Vegan Blended Lentil Soup

I usually make my lentil soups with tons of carrots, onions, and squash and totally love it that way.  That said, there is always room in my recipe repertoire for another vegan soup (especially with lentils!).

Last night our friends Chris and Stacey came over with their supercute daughter Lola for our first real dinner in our new apartment.  Stacey and Chris are always up for a vegan dinner and often school me in the ways of living more responsibly (like I mentioned here) and I've got another post coming one of these days about how Stacey and I reincarnated some chairs from her mother's basement into fabulously bright and shiny garden chairs for her backyard!

I was craving hummus and decided to plan a meal around that.  (Here's my hummus recipe by the way).  I decided to try to copy the lentil soup from our favorite restaurant: The Bedouin Tent.  It wasn't exactly the same as there's but it was pretty tasty and Chris and Lola in particular seemed to love it!

Here's how I made it: (it makes soup for 6-8)

Ingredients:

2 onions chopped

3 cloves of garlic chopped

2 tablespoons of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

2 cartons of no-chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you can't find it)

2 1/2 cups of organic green lentils

1 tablespoon coriander

1 1/2 tablespoons cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1. Saute the chopped onions and garlic in the olive oil and sprinkle the salt and pepper on while it cooks.
2. Cook them until they are transparent and very fragrant.
3. Add the coriander, cumin, and chili powder.
4. Cook the spices in for about a minute.
5. Add the stock and lentils.
6. Bring everything to a boil.
7. Lower the heat to a simmer.
8. Cook for an hour (or more).
9. Blend the soup (most easily with an immersion blender, but a blender will work too).
10. Serve hot with some toasted pita!