Tis the season for orange food

Halloween kind of passed me by this year. Last year I went to see people being reckless with fire on the Royal Mile, but this year I sat at home and did nothing much. I didn't even buy any discounted candy afterwards. Kind of sad, since I used to love Halloween. I did, however, make some delightful orange-coloured soup yesterday, and ate the leftovers for lunch today. Although there was no squash or pumpkin involved in this soup, the orangeness of it was very seasonal, I thought.

Carrot and Lentil Soup

Don't let the lumpy blobs put you off - it was delicious, really!

I vaguely followed the recipe for Lusciously Lemony Lentil Soup on Mommie Cooks, which I've used before to similarly delicious results. Main changes to the recipe were leaving out the tomato paste, leaving out the lemon, using red lentils, and using vegetable stock instead of chicken. Oh, and adding a handful of chickpeas I had leftover from something else. Also completely disregarding any proportions of carrot to lentil. Perhaps I can't really claim I followed the recipe at all. Haha. I topped it off with a blob of plain yogurt for contrast, but if I hadn't done that it would have been vegan. I went through a phase of making lots of lentil soup last winter, but I never bothered whizzing it with a hand blender, since I didn't have one yet. (And I like chunky, textured soups). My dude prefers smooth soups, so we have been making those a bit more often since getting the hand blender, and I'll admit I do like how the red lentils and carrots combine to make a creamy texture. The chickpeas help, too.