simmering soup

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Jen

What a great Sunday! It is so nice to have a weekend where I have nothing super important to do. And, a gorgeous weekend at that!

I hung around the house this morning until Brant made us french toast! I spent my time researching green cleaning products, and how to make them at home – fun stuff. Look out for a post this week about them. I want to use them for a few days to make sure they work first. 🙂

Breakfast was delicious. I haven’t had french toast in quite awhile and it always tastes great. I am not a big pancake or waffle fan, but french toast is a whole different story. It is so simple to make, and definitely tastes great. I like it for a treat every now and then.

He dipped the whole wheat toast into a mixture of eggs, milk and cinnamon. Then cooked them on the griddle until golden brown.

I topped my 2 pieces with raspberry jam, coconut butter and a few dark chocolate chunks!

This was so good! Great to change up my normal breakfast routine with something delicious over the weekend.

After breakfast, we headed out to the Whole Foods mecca in Dedham. This is the best Whole Foods around, and apparently the largest in Massachusetts. We had extra time today, so it was a perfect time to check it out. I just love it there and could spend hours, but we were in and out within an hour today. We picked up our produce for the week, as well as some cleaning products. Every now and then, Whole Foods has great sales on products around the store. Today, mangoes were 2 for $1.50 (originally $1.99 each!) and Dr. Bonner’s Castille soap was 1/2 price! I got a $14.99 bottle for $8.99 – sweet!

On our way home, I snacked on a banana and a Coconut Water with Pineapple.

I liked this coconut water, but not nearly as much as the guava I tried the other day. But, I still prefer the original to both of them.

Once home, it was time for lunch and then a nice long walk with Brant. We both finished up the leftovers from Friday’s dinner – Tabasco & Asparagus Quinoa.

We walked for over an hour all over Southie. People were everywhere! The weather was just too gorgeous to be inside. We spent more time outside cleaning up the porch and putting the chairs out. Now, I just hope it stays nice!

I spent the early evening cooking dinner and making a few baked goods while my soup was simmering, which I will post about over the next few days. Right now, I’m ready to stay away from the computer for the night.

But first, dinner. I followed Heidi’s recipe for Coconut Red Lentil Soup exactly…and it came out great! It is a great recipe to make when you don’t have many veggies in the fridge because you probably keep some of these items in your pantry (or at least, I do :)).

Coconut Red Lentil Soup

recipe followed exactly from 101cookbooks.com (see recipe here)

The combination of the lentils and split peas made a great soup thickener.

While they simmered away on the stove, I chopped up the other veggies.

The carrots get thrown in right away.

Then, the scallions and ginger get cooked with butter, raisins, tomato paste and curry powder in a separate pan.

Then, are added to the soup. It smelled really good while cooking. I simmered the soup for about 10 extra minutes to thicken it up, and I really loved the consistency. Instead of serving my soup over rice, I ate it with some croutons which I made from cutting up and toasting stale bread.