Quick Dinner: Tofu, Mushroom, Red Curry Soup

Last night we had soup for dinner.  The original recipe for this soup came from Sasha Wilkins' lovely Liberty London Girl blog.  At the end of the post, she suggests various ingredients one can use to make different versions of the soup.  I love recipes like this because it gives a blueprint from which a lot of different soups can be made.  For instance, I have never used Tom Yum paste in my soup - it has always been red curry paste - because all the tom yum pastes I have come across so far have had msg.  I also always saute the mushrooms with a little chopped shallot and dry sherry because I like the extra flavours.  And instead of coconut cream, I use coconut milk from the carton.

Last night's version involved a box of organic "Chef's Selection" mushrooms and roughly half a box of organic baby spinach from Whole Foods.  Just for fun, I added some cherry tomatoes and cilantro from the Union Square Farmers Market.  The tomatoes look good in the photo, but I am not sure they added much to the soup.  The cilantro, however, added quite a lot.  The fragrance reminded me of home.