French Lentil Salad with Raisins and Walnuts

This lentil salad is a perennial summer favorite in our household.  It is a great side dish to have on hand to eat throughout the week or to take to a potluck, and it keeps well in the fridge.  If you aren't familiar with french lentils, they are smaller than regular lentils, and have a more nuanced taste; they also keep their shape better when cooked, and are great in salads.  You may be able to find them in your regular grocery store, but if not they carry them at places like whole foods.  If you can't find them you can always substitute regular lentils (just be careful not to overcook them), but if you can find them they are totally worth adding to your pantry!  The recipe below is double what was called for in the original recipe, but I find it to be a better amount - if you don't want so much salad, feel free to halve the amounts.

French Lentil Salad with Raisins and Walnuts
Adapted from Entertaining for a Veggie Planet

• 2 cups french green lentils
• 1/2 cups raisins (or currants if you have them)
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (2 lemons)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion (to taste)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
• crumbled feta cheese (optional - I don't usually use but it is good)

Combine lentils with 4-6 cups of water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer until tender but still somewhat firm, about 20-30 minutes (less if you are using regular lentils).  Drain.

In a bowl, combine all remaining ingredients and mix well.  Refrigerate and serve either chilled or at room temperature.

Simple Hearty Lentil Stew with Potatoes and Spinach

I have been realizing that I tend to post on here about the more complicated (and usually less healthy) recipes that I make, but I don't always put up the day-to-day staples that we eat all the time.  I am a huge proponent of eating solid, healthy meals on a regular basis which don't take hours of prep time, so I am going to make more of an effort to share some of the simpler meals we eat, too.  These recipes aren't necessarily sexy or exciting, but they are simpler to prepare and often create plenty of leftovers that you can eat in a pinch when you just don't feel like cooking at all... I keep a few servings in the fridge but often stash most or all of the leftovers in the freezer to eat more than a few days later.  I hope that these more basic types of recipes won't be totally boring to folks.  These lentils fit solidly in the basics category - the recipe is flexible to what you happen to have on hand, they cook up pretty quickly and with minimal prep and make a big batch which keeps well.  They are hearty and delicious and can stand on their own or are great served with bread, brown rice, or a side of salad or veggies.

On a related note, I realized that I have a lot of gluten-free and vegan recipes up here, not because I purposefully follow either of those diets but I guess just because I love to cook beans and lentils and other things that happen to fit in those two categories.  I have gone back and added gluten-free and vegan tags to past posts, so if you are looking for recipes in those categories feel free to poke around!

A note on the bowl the soup is in - this is a pot that I made after college when I was playing around more with surface decoration.  I have made a number of pots with this kind of line decoration around the middle, made by holding a textured or pointed object on the surface of the pot while turning the wheel.  In this case I used a plastic fork and slowly moved it up and down to give the design some movement - I like how it turned out!  This bowl is a bit on the small side but still a much-used and well-loved one in our house.

Hearty Lentil Stew with Potatoes and Spinach

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1 lb bag lentils, rinsed/looked over to make sure no foreign objects
• 6-8 cups water
• 2 medium potatoes, chopped
• box of frozen spinach, defrosted if possible (or bunch of fresh spinach, rinsed, if you prefer/have on hand - or this works well with Kale as well)
• salt/pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a medium to large pot, add onions and saute for 3-5 minutes on medium-high heat, until onions begin to brown.  Add herbs (note - you could substitute 2 teaspoons of an herb mix such as italian herbs or herbes de provence if you prefer), and saute for another 1 minute.  Add the lentils and water and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  You can chop the potatoes while the lentils simmer; I left the skins on but you could peel if you prefer.  Add potatoes when chopped and simmer for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the spinach and raise heat to return to a simmer, then lower heat again and cook until lentils are fully cooked, another 10-15 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Note: you could cook this in a slow-cooker if you started the onions/herbs on the stovetop and then transferred to the slow-cooker, but it would take significantly longer to cook.  It would probably turn out well if left to cook all day on low, however (maybe add spinach in the last hour to half hour).


So... what are your favorite kinds of basic everyday meals?  And do you enjoy my little pottery updates or are they distracting from the recipes?

Festive Hanukah Meal - Sweet Potato Latkes and Baked Apples

 

 

Growing up, my family celebrated both Christmas and Hanukah, but I don't always celebrate Hanukah now, so I was excited to cook up a celebratory Hanukah meal when I had a good friend over for dinner last night.  We actually didn't light a menorah (we were going to jerry-rig one using birthday candles but I didn't have enough)... but the dinner still felt like Hanukah in any case.  I wanted to think of a menu that had some traditional elements but that took healthy, vegetarian and interesting approach.  I love sweet potatoes, so I thought it would be fun to try sweet potato latkes, and rather than making apple sauce I decided to make baked apples.  I also made rolls using 1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 white flour and the artisan bread in 15 minutes a day cookbook, and I made a lentil stew with potatoes and spinach.  I was very happy with how it turned out!  The baked apples were especially delicious, I want to make them again soon.

For the latkes, I used this recipe, although I had a lot of sweet potatoes so I added another egg.  I liked the spices but I think they might have actually been better without them.  Also, mine had slightly cooled before I ate them, which really isn't ideal.  They are definitely best when eaten piping hot!  I served them with sour cream.

For the baked apples, I modified this recipe (inspired by this recipe from Epicurious, but not having the necessary ingredients/time to do something that complicated).  Basically, in each apple I put a tablespoon or so of brown sugar, as many raisins as would fit, a sprinkle of cinnamon and then topped with a small pat of butter (definitely not as much as the recipe called for).  I baked them at 350 for about 45 minutes or maybe more (until they were tender).  They were tender but not disintegrating and the addition of cinnamon and raisins definitely made it a more interesting taste.

Happy Holidays!  I hope you are having good celebratory meals with friends and family!

What to do with 8 million cucumbers... and also a bulgur lentil salad

We are back home, and this is what my garden had to say to me after a week away.  I was lucky that it rained a lot while we were gone, otherwise the plants would have been much less happy.  The tomatoes are still recovering from their earlier overabundance but it looks like we'll have a few in the coming weeks which will be nice.  The first answer to what to do with 8 million cucumbers is obvious... pickles!  However, I already made these from this recipe just before we left (with all the cucumbers that I harvested before we left) and they were ready to eat when we got back.  I am normally not a pickle person but I liked them.

So, I didn't want to make more pickles tonight.  I looked in Chez Panisse Vegetables and came up with a simple recipe for sauteed cucumbers.  I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but with nothing better to do with all my cukes I thought I would give it a try.  I also made up a lentil bulgur salad with roasted purple peppers (addressing my other vegetable problem)... The cucumbers were pretty good although a little bland.  The lentil salad was a variant on ones I have made before and was again very yummy!

Sauteed Cucumbers
Adapted from Chez Panisse Vegetables

Peel, seed and chop several cucumbers.  Saute in butter until slightly tender but still firm.  Salt to taste and garnish with chopped chives.

Lentil Bulgur Salad with Roasted Peppers

• 1 cup dried bulgur
• 3/4 cup dried lentils (I used regular brown lentils but french lentils would be good too)
• 1-2 large or several small green, purple or red peppers
• 1-2 teaspoons chopped parsley
• 1-2 teaspoons chopped mint
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
• salt to taste

Bring about 2-3 cups of water to boil in a small saucepan, add lentils and lightly boil/simmer over medium heat until tender (about 20-30 minutes).  Put the bulgur in a heat-proof container with a lid and cover with boiling water by about an inch, let sit.  Very lightly coat the peppers with oil (I used olive oil spray) and roast - I roasted by broiling in the toaster oven until they looked done, turning midway - I think it was about 5-10 minutes.  Take them out of the oven and either put in a paper bag or cover the pan with a plate or other lid, let cool and then remove skins (as much as you can - don't worry if you can't get them all off), then finely chop.  In a large bowl or container, mix together all ingredients.  This would also be good with the addition of toasted walnuts or feta cheese.