Lentils

Lentils are a legume that is fairly new to me.  I've eaten them only a few times before, in Indian food.  They are known as daal, and in the dishes I've tried, they were extremely tasty.   A few weeks ago, I tried to make lentils a meat replacement in shepards' pie.  Not good!  Not because they weren't good, but because the recipe I tried stunk.  I actually didn't even attempt to serve it to P because I knew he would hate it.

This weekend, I decided to sprout the remaining bag of lentils, which really took less than 24 hours.  Its so super easy to do, really.  You should give it a try!  Briefly, soak the lentils overnight, drain and let sit, moist for 12 hours.  If not sprouted yet, rinse and let sit for another 12 hours. Anyway, I found a great site about lentils that had a few recipes that I decided to give a try.

Tonight's dinner: Middle Eastern Lentil Soup
Ingredients:
2 cups of sprouted lentils
1 onion, diced
1 box (4 cups) veggie broth
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 tsp fennel seed
1/2 tsp ground cumin
scant 1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1/2 tsp pink salt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp dried parsley
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Directions:
I didn't have time to mess around with doing it the prescribed way, so this is what I did:  In a pot, saute one diced onion in some water.  After the onion is transparent, add the spices and saute for a minute.  Add broth, bell pepper and lentils, cover and bring to a boil.  Drop to a simmer for 20 minutes or less, until the lentils are soft.  Add the lemon juice, parsley and yogurt.  Serve with a dollop of yogurt, if desired.

P and L had 2 bowls.  And the girls?  Well, they ate it...even though all my kids despise red bell peppers.  Oh, and I mean despise!  This recipe is another keeper, but I will have to double the recipe because I only had a small bowl, since there wasn't enough.

With the rest of the lentils, I made the lentils and rice.
Ingredients:
2 cups of brown rice, soaked and drained
7 cups water
2 onions, diced
3 cups sprouted lentils
2 tsp pink salt
2 Tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp garam masala
2 Tbsp curry powder
2 tsp oregano
4 tsp basil
1/2 tsp ground red pepper
4 bay leaves
Directions:
Saute the onion in a little water until transparent, then add the spices and saute for about a minute.  Add water, rice and lentils, bring to a boil.  Cover, reduce to a simmer until rice cooks, about an hour.

The recipe, as recorded, has too much salt and garlic, so I reduced the amounts in the above ingredient list.

The kids aren't loving the texture of the lentils, but they are nutritious and a quite easy legume to cook up (read: it takes 20 minute to cook, not 2 hours).  And, more importantly, they ate them :-)