Two Soups, Two Coasts, One Day

I'm getting over a little cold that gave me an excuse to curl up on the sofa with a good book, drink lots of tea, and enjoy hot, home made soup. Cooking home made soup and taking it easy aren't necessarily compatible goals. But I pulled out these two yummy, tried and true recipes today, both so simple to make that I was able to prepare the spinach soup for lunch while putting the lentil soup in the slow cooker for dinner.

The first of these soups comes from my days in the Northeast, a recipe from Wegmans grocery store for Spinach Soup.

My only change for this recipe is to skip serving the egg on top of the soup. Instead I like to turn the soup into a meal by pairing it with an egg sandwich. Spinach Soup has also gone great with a quick veggie burger sandwich, pita pizza, or simply with fresh bread and hummus or peanut butter. Above the soup is pictured with my lumpy, delicious, freshly baked loaf of white whole wheat bread.

In the slow cooker for dinner is a soup recipe from Whole Foods, my new go-to grocery store on the West Coast. Whole Foods doesn't present Turkish Red Lentil Soup as a slow cooker recipe, and I've certainly made it many times on the stove top. But I noticed right away how well the recipe lends itself to the slow cooker. I normally sauté the veggies on the stovetop for about five minutes, then combine veggies and all the other ingredients (except for the optional lemon, which I leave out completely) in the slow cooker. I cook the soup for 8 hours on high, or for 4 hours on low. It makes the whole house smell awesome.

Tonight I'll be serving Turkish Red Lentil Soup with pasta ai broccoli. Lentil soup is an awesome vegetarian second to a pasta with vegetables first course. It also goes well with bread and salad. And sometimes I sneak it into an Indian meal in place of dal.