Apricot Lentil Soup

Recipe #57: http://shop.safeway.com/superstore/sixframeset.asp?mainurl=http://safewaycanada.allrecipes.com/Recipe/recipe.aspx?nprid=12979&pn=recipe&sn=

Wow, my last food entry was in April? Given that today is July 25, I seem to have taken an extended vacation from the kitchen. I blame it on moving halfway across Canada.

Now that I've lived in Calgary for nearly two months, I figured it was time to start experimenting with new recipes again. After all, a girl's gotta eat! Some different grocery stores out here (thank you, Safeway) means a new source for recipe ideas.

Truthfully, I'm not yet sure how this recipe turned out. I mean, I can tell you what it looks like and you can see for yourself in the badly lit photo I post, but I haven't tasted the end product yet. I did, however, give some to some new friends of mine here in town so maybe I'll get a review from them at some point.

As recipes goes, this one is pretty straightforward. The tricky part might be measuring enough lentils if you buy them in bulk like I did, but if you've got excellent lentil karma like me, you'll somehow eyeball out EXACTLY enough lentils at the store. On the good side, you won't be stuck with any pesky leftover lentils; on the flip side, you won't have any lentils to spare if you spill part of the bag all over the counter like I always seem to do.

Also, if you buy your chicken stock in the 900 mL tetra packs like me, you'll have leftovers in the second container. Have a plan to use it soon. I haven't got that far yet...

I wasn't sure whether to chop up the dried apricots for this recipe. The recipe doesn't say to chop them up, but you're dicing the onion and chopping the tomatoes and mincing the garlic which means if you leave the apricots whole like me, they might be kind of odd in the soup as the random big pieces. Unless, of course, if you manage to find them all in the soup and blend them at the end. I didn't.

I actually preferred the colour of the soup prior to adding the lentils when it was just apricots, onions, garlic and broth. I'm not loving the "creamy-ish" appearance that it is now, but as the old saying goes, "Don't judge a soup by its appearance".... or something like that.