Carrot And Lentil Soup With Toasted Almonds

Carrot and Lentil Soup with Toasted Almonds – healthy, delicious, French-style soup. Cooked carrots and lentils are blended in a blender to create a smooth, velvety soup. The combination of spices (cumin, coriander, nutmeg, chili, and, especially, the Cajun spice) create additional dimension to the soup. The soup has a well-balanced flavor – the sweetness of carrots is compensated by earthiness of lentils. The toasted sliced almonds sprinkled on top complete this soup perfectly!

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INGREDIENTS

4 carrots
1/2 cup green lentils , dry
water
1/2 cup half and half
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon chilli
1 teaspoon Cajun spice
salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Boil carrots in water until carrots soften and are thoroughly cooked. Bring 1/2 cup of lentils to boil in 2 cups of water, cook lentils until they are cooked. Add water if necessary. Reserve water from both cooking the carrots and lentils.
When carrots and lentils are cooked, let them cool. When they are cooled, add carrots in 2 batches to blender. Add first batch of carrots plus 1/4 cup of reserved water from cooking carrots. You can also use regular water. Blend until carrots reach puree consistency. Do the same with the second batch of carrots. Put pureed carrots in a large pan.
Add cooked lentils to the blender along with 1/2 cup of reserved water from cooking lentils. Blend until pureed. Add pureed lentils to pureed carrots in a pan. Add 1/2 cup half-and-half. Heat through without boiling. Add all spices, stirring constantly. Add at least 1/2 teaspoon Cajun spice. Taste to check the flavor. Add salt and pepper, adjust other spices if necessary, going especially generous with Cajun spice.
Before serving, toast sliced almonds in the oven preheated to 350 F for about 5 minutes. Ladle soup in soup bowls. Sprinkle with toasted sliced almonds on top. Grind black pepper over the soup.