East End Food Co-op is where we do a lot of our grocery shopping and it’s long been a neighbourhood hub in our area. It’s hard to go in there without running into someone we know and some of the staff know us so well that they’ve memorized our member number. The co-op does a good job of stocking organic produce, along with products that cater to the various tastes and needs of their customers (for instance, they sell a very good gluten-free all purpose flour). When this soup came up in the rotation, I headed over to the co-op to pick up some more of their beautiful organic French green lentils. Though I have to go further afield for some ingredients (like next week’s rose syrup), I’ve always felt grateful that I have such good options a five-minute walk away.

This soup was well worth using those lentils. One expects earthy, savoury flavours in lentil soup, so the brightness brought by the fresh ginger and orange peel in this recipe surprised me. There have been a couple of recipes from the book that I thought had a little too much orange in them, but this one was perfectly balanced, I thought. I made this with olive oil and vegetable stock, so it made for a nice meatless meal.

Yogurt and lardons are suggested as toppings, or in Cher’s case, homemade labneh. I was so pleased with this soup’s flavour that I ate it just as it was. No toppings needed.

You can find a version of this recipe at Sis.Boom.[Blog!]

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Orange-Scented Lentil Soup