Glazed Lentil Loaf

Glazed Lentil Loaf

Glazed Lentil Loaf

Loaf Recipe

1 cup dry lentils

2 1/2 cups water

3 tbsp ground flaxseed

1/3 cup water

2 tbsp olive oil for sautéing

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 small onion, finely diced

1 small red bell pepper, finely diced

1 carrot, finely diced or grated

1 cup chopped mushrooms

3/4 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup oat flour

1 heaping tsp dried thyme

1/2 heaping tsp cumin

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/4 - 1/2 tsp ground chipotle pepper

cracked pepper & sea salt to taste

Lentils

We went to the Bulk Barn to buy the lentils and there are a lot of kinds to choose from, including organic ones, although they are much, much pricier. Bulk Barn had green ones, red ones, orange ones, brown ones, black ones, French ones, etc, so several options. We went with green. Although they look brownish.

Rinse the lentils and add 2 1/2 cups water with lentils to a pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cool but don't drain; mushiness is ok.

Lentils cooking

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Making "Flax Egg"

In small bowl combine ground flaxseed and 1/3 cup water and set aside for 10 minutes in the fridge. This is a vegan version of egg and will act as your binder!

Lentils, oats, oat flour, spices

Vegetables

I guess these don't all constitute as vegetables, since mushrooms are fungi, but same idea. Love all the colors. 

Chop and mince the veggies as indicated in recipe above. Sauté garlic, onion, bell pepper, carrots and mushrooms for about 5 minutes. Add spices and mix, then set aside to cool.

Chopped vegetables

Veggies sautéing

Mix it All Up

In a food processor, blend 3/4 of the lentil mixture. Combine sautéed vegetables with the lentils, oats, oat flour and flax egg. Add salt and pepper as needed. 

Lentils and veggies mixed

Loaf Pans

Place into a loaf pans lined with parchment paper and press down firmly to make sure the edges get filling too.

Prepared loaf pans

Uncooked lentil loafs, sans glaze

Glaze

3 heaping tbsp ketchup

1 heaping tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 heaping tbsp pure maple syrup

Combine ketchup, vinegar and syrup in a small bowl and mix. Spread over top of loaf.

Uncooked glazed lentil loaf

Bake in oven for about 45 - 50 minutes, then let cool before slicing.

Cooked loafs, boiling potatoes

Glazed lentil loaf with potatoes and Lady A's

Lentil Curry on Rice

This is the most amazing thing I've eaten in awhile. I've had curries before but this one is the keeper, so I need to blog it before I forget it. lol

Lentil Curry on White Rice

Ingredients

3 small or 1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots (I wanted to put one in but I didn't have one, but next time I will and it will be even better, if that's even possible.
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves minced garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp dry ginger
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 cups veggie broth
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup brown lentils
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup green beans, 1/2" lengths
1 large package of fresh spinach

Directions

1. Cook onions and carrots in oil until soft, not brown. 
2. Add garlic and cook one minute. 
3. Drain the tomatoes then add to veggies and bring to a simmer then add all the spices. 
4. Take 2 cups of this mixture and puree it in a food processor or blender then add it back to the pan. 
5. Add the veggie broth, coconut milk, water and the cup of lentils. 
6. Cover and simmer on a low boil for 35 minutes until lentils are tender but still hold their form. 
7. Add the green beans and spinach and stir until it wilts. 

Serve over your favorite rice.

If you don't love this I don't even know what to tell you. I am looking forward to work tomorrow because I am having it for lunch. THAT'S how good it is. Seriously, make this.

How healthy is this?

First of all look at how healthy one cup of brown lentils is:
 molybdenum 330%
 folate 90%
 fiber 63%
 copper 56%
 phosphorus 51%
 manganese 49%
 iron 37%
 protein 36%
 vitamin B1 28%
 pantothenic acid 25%
 zinc 23%
 vitamin B6 21%
 potassium 21%

Secondly, look at the nutrition in one cup of cooked spinach:
 vitamin K 987%
 vitamin A 105%
 manganese 84%
 folate 66%
 magnesium 39%
 iron 36%
 copper 34%
 vitamin B2 32%
 vitamin B6 26%
 vitamin E 25%
 calcium 24%
 vitamin C 24%
 potassium 24%
 fiber 17%
 vitamin B1 14%
 phosphorus 14%
 zinc 12%
 protein 11%
 choline 8%
 omega-3 fats 7%
 vitamin B3 6%
pantothenic acid 5%

In fact, besides the oil and salt, everything in this recipe is beneficial in some way. I love that I am getting stuff my body needs in such a delicious meal. Not only that, but it came together quickly and was simple to make. You should try making it! :)

Bean & Lentil Salad

I made this bean salad to take with me to Sheephouse Falls tomorrow and it's very good so I wanted to document the recipe so we can make it again. It was inspired by our homegrown green beans along with the fact that we already had the other ingredients on hand.

Bean & Lentil Salad

Bean Mixture

3 cups cooked lentils
1 1/2 cups cooked black turtle beans
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 1/2 cups fresh green beans cut in 1" lengths, and cooked until tender
1/2  cup chopped scallions
1/3 cup white onion, chopped fine

Vinaigrette

10 sprigs of fresh parsley, stemmed and chopped
5 tbsp white vinegar
5 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
5 tsp white sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt or to taste

Mix the vinaigrette in with the bean mixture until everything is coated. Refrigerate overnight.

Protein

You may notice I use lentils in a lot of our dishes. A lot of people ask us where we get our protein and honestly, I get a lot of mine from lentils. We throw them into everything; gravies, sauces, soups, roasted veggies, salads, burgers...pretty much anything. We also eat beans quite a bit, especially in our Mexican food, which we have quite often.

Here is a breakdown of the protein in this salad. Mind you, this in in the entire salad, but even a 1-cup serving would have a substantial amount of protein.

3 cups lentils 54 g
1 1/2 cups black turtle beans 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups chickpeas 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups green beans 3 g

8 cups of food containing 174 g of protein. That amounts to 21.75 g per cup.

How much protein is enough?
They say you should have 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. That means that most adults would need between 70-100 g of protein per day. Getting 1/5 to 1/4 in just one cup of bean salad is a great start to meeting the requirement.

Cabbage Rolls

Since cabbage rolls have always been one of my favorite dishes, I am really happy to discover that I can still enjoy them despite having given up eating meat. My aunt Emeline used to made cabbage rolls; they were kind of her thing. She used to steam the cabbage leaves in the dishwasher! I boiled mine in a big pot of water and they were easy to work with.

Vegan Cabbage Rolls

Sub the Meat for Lentils

Obviously there is no ground beef in these cabbage rolls. They're made with lentils instead, and they're actually pretty amazing. I've eaten them for supper twice and for lunch twice and I clean my plate every time.

Recipe Tweaking

Original recipe here
I stayed true to the original recipe with the exception of leaving the raisins out of the sauce. I think I would have liked the raisins, but Laura wasn't feeling it, so we decided to skip them. If I made them again, I would use less black pepper and a tiny bit more allspice.

Other things you could do would be to use other types of spices, or your favorite marinara instead of the sauce in the recipe. You could also use any kind of rice or other grain you want for the filling, or even add some veggies, like chopped spinach or kale.

Cabbage Rolls in Roast Pan

Takes Foreffingever

I have two complaints about making cabbage rolls. The first is that they are friggy and time-consuming. I don't think these can be made in an hour. The cabbage has to be cored, boiled and cooled. The rice and lentils both need to be cooked for the filling. There is chopping for both the sauce and the filling. For this first time, everything was measured. Then there is the wrapping, which can be a bit of an exercise in trial and error, especially at first. Then, finally, there is the cooking, which I think was about 45 minutes to an hour. You can't just come home from work and say, "Let's have cabbage rolls for supper!" and expect to eat before 9:00 pm. Not happening. No, these are a Sunday afternoon endeavor. But, worth it.

Makes a Huge Mess

The very worst part (my second and loudest complaint) about making cabbage rolls is that it creates a lot of dirty dishes - definitely not a one-pot meal. I think I dirtied a mixing bowl, a pot for the rice, a pot for the lentils, a pot for the sauce, 2 baking dishes (because I don't have a large one and had to use the small roast pan and a covered casserole dish), the grater, all the measuring cups and spoons, a wine glass and a big pile of utensils. Besides that, there was sauce splattered all over the stove, and bits of filling all over my work space and torn and shredded pieces of cooked cabbage all over the counter. And dishes everywhere. Not my ideal work environment, since I'm a "clean as you go" kind of kitchen bitch, but that doesn't seem to be entirely possible with these since there are too many things on the go at once. Wish I'd gotten a picture of it.

But again, it's worth it. And makes about 18 rolls.

Garden Vegetable Soup

I love soup so much and when the ingredients are this fresh, I love it even more. So good!

Vegetable Soup

Homegrown Veggies

Most of the ingredients in our soup today were harvested from the garden!

Snow Peas

The peas are growing like crazy out there, and needed to be picked so we are trying to incorporate them into every meal we can. 

Snow Peas

Beans

The beans are just getting started, due to late planting, but there were enough today to throw into the soup. We used a few Royal Burgundy bush beans and some green beans.

Chopped Beans & Peas

Potatoes & Carrots

The carrots aren't big yet either and needed to be thinned out in order to bulk up, so we thinned them out and used the teeny carrots in the soup.

The potatoes are still small too, but we've been harvesting a few of them anyway. We harvested a red potato plant called "Chieftain" for the soup.

Carrots & Red Potatoes

Kale

Kale isn't one of our favorite veggies, but it's great in soup so we made sure to chop a few leaves for it today. 

Kale

Fresh Herbs

The herbs have been growing well all summer and we harvest them as often as needed, and dry as many as we can for winter. Last year's herb harvest lasted all winter and we are still using some of them from 2015 this summer. We harvested parsley, thyme and oregano for the soup.

Parsley, Thyme & Oregano

We still have a bag of store-bought onions so we left the ones we planted in the garden to keep growing while we use what we already have. 

Garden Vegetable Soup Recipe

1 box vegetable soup

2 cups garden vegetable cocktail

4 cups water

1/4 cup rice

1/2 cup red lentils

1/2 cup soup mix (contains barley, lentils & various grains)

Several sprigs of parsley, thyme and oregano

3 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Whatever vegetables in whatever amounts you want. I used:

• 2 small onions, chopped
• Handful of snow peas, trimmed and chopped
• Handful of green beans, trimmed and chopped
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 3 cups potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups kale

Directions

I started with sautéing the onion in 1/2 cup water, then added the carrots. Next, I poured the box of vegetable broth in and then added the dried ingredients (rice, barley, etc). From there you can start adding the potatoes, beans & peas, kale and herbs, timed according to what takes longer to cook. I added the vegetable cocktail at the end, then began seasoning with the salt and pepper, tasting with every pinch to make sure it's not over-seasoned.

There are no real rules for making soup, but for it to taste good, seasonings are key. Salt is usually desired, but if you need to go low-sodium, go heavy on herbs, pepper, etc.

Pot of Soup