Vegan Cooking Red Lentil Soup

I'm continuing this adventure into plant based cooking with a familiar recipe I've made often over the years as a vegetarian- lentil soup. My favorite lentils are red lentils, however any lentils will do. As I've mentioned before, I don't tend to follow recipes but use what I have on hand. So this particular version of my lentil soup included the following veggies:

1 large carrot
1/4 cup of cabbage
1/8 cup white onion
1 chopped red pepper

I sauteed these in coconut oil while the lentils boiled, and then added them to the pot of lentils to continue cooking. I boiled the whole thing for about 15 minutes.

To this I added the following spices:

black pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon sazon
1/8 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning

Usually I use my electric hand blender to blend everything into a puree, but when I plugged it in, it wouldn't work. I have no idea why, it worked perfectly the last time I used it. Such is life. So I improvised with my favorite kitchen tool- a stainless steel tooth edged manual chopper. I inherited this from my grandmother when she passed away. I use it so often for so many different tasks, and every time I do, I remember Grammie in her kitchen. It's a small treasure that came to the rescue when my electric hand blender went kaput!

I used it to grind up the soup by hand. It didn't come out as smooth as usual, but I think I like the rustic texture better.

I love lentil soup, so I was happy with this one, but the true test will be if my daughter likes it. I hope she does because it's packed with nutrition.