Creamy Coconut Tomato Lentil Soup

Here's another recipe where the title is the directions! I love those.

This soup was something that came together out of a weekend of fast and furious housecleaning. We are almost up on the holiday season, and there was some final cleaning and unpacking that just needed to get done.

I had a can of San Marzano tomatoes and was reaching to make a soup with some leftover leek stock that I had in the fridge. I didn't really want to slow down, but I was hungry. Right next to this can was some coconut milk.

If you've never tried coconut milk, or coconut oil in your cooking, you should. It is one of the most beautiful flavours, for sure! In addition, consuming it (in my experience) actually has a slimming effect. It is really quite amazing, since it is a saturated fat, but true. Plus, my skin always brightens, hydrates and clears within a day or two of coconutting.

So, feeling a bit too chunky from my work related indulgences recently, I dumped both cans into a soup pot with the leek stock (which is so mild that I really could have used water).

Did you know that tomato is a fruit? It made perfect sense as the lighter qualities were complimented by the coconut milk. It goes with pineapple, with mango, with everything tropical, really. So why not the fruity tomato?

I added salt and a bit of pepper, and a cup of red lentils for some body and their heartier flavour.

Not since I combined roasted beets with chocolate cupcakes have I felt such a zing of inspiration in the kitchen. I like being inspired by TV and cookbooks, but I really love coming up with something on my own that tastes this good. The coconut gave the soup that creamy texture that is often missing in vegan cuisine. The lentils steamed beautifully, added nice protein and heft, and the tomatoes were just gorgeous! I took them out once the cooking had started and pureed them in the magic bullet, but could just as easily have left them to mash up with a fork or potato masher for some chunks of tomato. Either way, this combo of ingredients was extraordinary!