Lentils with Caramelised Onion and Mushrooms

I love lentils. Yes, I know it's a bit of a stereotype, a lentil-loving vegetarian, but if you are vegetarian and don't already love these pulses, then I would suggest that you get out there and start to love them! In all seriousness though, vegetarian or not, lentils are a great food - they are packed with protein, very filling, and really tasty. They are also versatile, though many people instantly associate them with lentil soup, and then can't think of anything else they could make with them.

I mainly use red and brown lentils, but puy lentils are another type that I mean to try (whenever I see a recipe calling for puy lentils, I tend to substitute brown ones - but I should really get out of this habit!). There are plenty more types to discover, but the main thing I find you should bear in mind, is whether the recipe you are planning to make calls for lentils that will go mushy when cooked (like red lentils) or hold their shape a bit better (like brown and puy lentils) - then if you want/need to, it's easy to substitute another lentil that will cook in the same way.

When David and I moved into our first flat, the previous tenant had left behind a few books, including a Lebanese cook book (the Australian Women's Weekly Lebanese Cooking). Of course, I added it to my collection immediately! One of the meals that I discovered from the book was Megadarra, which, although it sounds like some sort of dinosaur or maybe some sort of robotic monster in a Hollywood blockbuster ("Oh no, it's....Megadarra - RUUUUN!!!!") is actually a lentil-based dish. I have altered it a wee bit to my own tastes, but a few years on, it is still very much part of my kitchen repertoire, and so I thought I would share it with you.

It is an easy recipe, but you need to focus on your timings, as you have to monitor two different pans at the same time. If you don't want to do this, you can make your onion and mushroom mix in advance, then make the lentil mix and combine the two at the end - just make sure you properly heat the whole thing through at that stage. This is a lovely dinner (you can serve it with a side salad of your choice) or a satisfying lunch (especially good since it can be eaten cold if you don't have a microwave to heat it up).

Lentils with Caramelised Onion and Mushrooms

(serves 2)

Ingredients:

100g brown lentils

650ml water (plus 2 tbsp water)

2tbsp oil

1 onion, sliced

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

100g mushrooms

100g mushrooms, finely sliced

50g long-grain rice

1/2 tsp ground allspice*

1/2 tsp ground dried coriander leaf

1/2 tsp salt 

1/2 tsp black pepper

*Confession: when I first looked for this, I accidentally bought something called 'all spices', which is a kind of spice mix - but you actually want a spice (not spice mix) called allspice. Confusing, I know! If you can't find allspice, try using cinnamon and/or nutmeg in its place.

Method:

Combine lentils and 350ml water in a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the lentils are just tender (do not overcook - the lentils will continue cooking after this stage!). 

As soon as you have your lentils on, start frying your onions: heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium-high heat, then add the onions and sugar and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Next, add the balsamic vinegar and one tablespoon of water. Cook, stirring, for 10 minutes. Add another tablespoon of water and cook, stirring, for a further 5 minutes or until onions are caramelised. At this point, add the mushrooms and cook until they are nicely browned. Take off the heat and place to one side.

When the lentils have been cooking for their initial 20 minutes, add the rice, 300ml water, the allspice, coriander, salt and pepper to the lentils and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the rice is tender and the liquid has gone. 

Add the onion and mushroom mixture to the lentil and rice mixture, heat through, and serve either warm or cold.

Mushrooms just added to the pan

Mushrooms browning nicely!

Aim for a nice reddish-brown mushroom colour

Lentil 'Meatballs' and Tomato Sauce

I love taking inspiration from other food blogs - in terms of both style and content. I have already mentioned one of my favourite blogs, The Stone Soup on here - not only is Jules very knowledgeable about her subject, but she has a great style that I love reading. Plus all of her recipes come with tweaks, so even when she blogs about a meat or fish-based dish, she gives pointers on how to make it vegetarian or vegan. Her recipes are also nice and simple, which is always a plus! But another thing I love about her blog is how interactive it is - lots of readers always comment on her recipes, and - perhaps following her lead - are always keen to share how they have tweaked the recipe to suit their own needs or tastes. The end result is an amazing melting pot of culinary ideas based around a common dish, which I find so inspirational.


Last night's dinner was an amalgamation of one of Jules's recipes and one of Heidi Swanson's. Jules had blogged about lentil balls as an alternative to meatballs, and one of the commenters mentioned that they had made Heidi's Five-Minute Tomato Sauce to accompany the lentil balls. The sauce sounded so amazing that I just had to try both it and the lentil balls (that I keep accidentally referring to as meatballs....slips off the tongue more easily, doesn't it?!) and I was really impressed with both and just had to share this recipe with you. (David really enjoyed it too, so it has also passed the 'meat-eater test'.)

Lentil 'Meatballs' and Tomato Sauce

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

115g dried brown lentils

500ml vegetable stock

3 tbsps olive oil (plus more for drizzling)

1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp salt

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tsp lemon juice

75g ground almonds

1 medium egg

150g dried spaghetti

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC Put the lentils in a medium pan and pour over the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for approximately 20 minutes or until lentils are soft. Meanwhile, prepare the tomato sauce. Put the olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt and garlic in a pan and gently heat until the aromas are released - don't let the garlic brown. At this point, add the tomatoes, and bring to a gentle simmer. Crush any larger pieces of tomato between the side of the pan and the stirring spoon. Take off the heat and add the lemon juice. Pour the sauce into an oven-proof bowl and set to one side. Once your lentils have finished cooking, drain them, put them in a bowl and rougroughly mash them. Add the ground almonds and the egg, and mix well. Once everything is well combined, use a soup spoon to help form the lentil mixture into medium-sized balls, and place the balls into the tomato sauce. Drizzle with a glug of olive oil. Bake the whole thing in the oven for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, put the spaghetti into a large pan of boiling water and cook until tender (about 10 minutes). Serve the lentil balls and tomato sauce on top of the spaghetti for a tasty, filling dinner.

To serve, Jules suggests sprinkling with parmesan, which I forgot to do, but that would definitely be really tasty!

Kitchen Products I Love

I have just finished my dinner - the delicious Wholesome Lemony Dhal from my friend Nicola's blog, Just8 - and had to tell you about it, as I think anyone who enjoys my blog and/or recipes should definitely try this one out. I had mine with broccoli instead of rice, as suggested by Nicola, and David also had some garlic and coriander pita bread with his. I love the simplicity of it - but at the same time, it is so filling, with each flavour really shining through. With the spinach and broccoli, it will take you well on your way to your five a day, and the lentils are a great source of protein. The health benefits of the dish combined with its ease of preparation and delicious taste make it as close to a perfect dinner as I can imagine. The only thing I would add to the original recipe is that if you don't have lemons to hand, you can use lemon juice from a bottle, in which case I would add about 120ml.

Wholesome Lemony Dhal with broccoli and salad

But what I really thought I would write about tonight, was not a recipe at all, but actually some of the recent and not-so-recent purchases for my veggie kitchen. From the start of this blog, I've said I would review products as well as share recipes, so today, I'm going to talk to you about some of the kitchen items I love (and one I'm not so happy with...just to warn you!). So, without further ado...

Tiger - Bargains or Cheap Tat?

I have recently been introduced to the delights of Tiger by my friend Anna at Pink Pom Poms. This shop is fairly new to Glasgow, but from looking at their website, they are a pretty big chain across much of Europe and even further afield. They don't appear to have an online shop, but if you have one nearby (there's a store locator on the website), it's worth a wander. I'd describe it as a kind of smaller scale Ikea (but that could just be the way they name their products) - they sell small kitchen and home products, such as kitchen timers, candles, notepads, etc.

When I was there a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a cheap and creative way to store my rubber gloves (yes, how exciting!). I can't attach anything permanent to the wall, as we're in a rented flat, so it had to be something removable too. I came up with this:

Yup, a toothbrush holder. But as you can see, I have successfully used it to store the rubber gloves, and at just £2, I'm pretty pleased with my bargain! I was a little bit worried about the suction cups and whether the holder would actually stay stuck to the wall, but so far it's stayed up no problem for over a month. Just goes to show, that sometimes it pays to think a bit outside the box when you're looking for cheap storage solutions.

I also bought a knife sharpener at Tiger. However, this was not such a success story, unfortunately. I thought it looked cool, and must have been swayed by this and the price - £3 - (and the fact that my lovely Jamie Oliver knives are getting a bit blunt). But when I tried it out, it didn't seem to really make much of a difference. I wondered if I should have tried running the knife through the 3 sections for a bit longer, but this actually seemed to make the knife even blunter! I would have to say, it looks like a knife sharpener is not one of those products that you can go for the cheapest option with - or at least, not Tiger's version.

So, looks like while there are some great bargains to be had at Tiger, sometimes cheap really does mean bad.

IKEA

Who doesn't love IKEA?! I headed there last night to pick up some storage jars for some of the dried ingredients in my kitchen. As you can see below, they look pretty smart in the cupboard, and keep the contents nice and fresh. I've used mine to store my different types of pasta (but need more jars for more types!), rice (ditto), cous cous and lentils in. The tall ones cost £4.25 each and the shorter (but presumably bigger in terms of capacity) ones in front cost £4.75 each. They are really nice and do the job well (I already had one of the tall ones for a while, and loved it so much I decided to 'add to the family'.)

I'll need to get some more for the top shelf though - as you can see, it's still a bit of a mess! 

Kitchen White Board

This white board is the final product I wanted to show you. I actually bought this over a year ago, and I'm so glad I did. It's often the small, simple things that make a difference, I find, and the white board is a good example of that. I didn't have a pin board in my old flat, so thought this would be handy for scribbling notes on. I now do have a pin board, but while I pin money off vouchers, postcards, and taxi company business cards to it, I still like my whiteboard for writing notes. 

I sometimes use it to plan the week's recipes, or if I'm having friends over for dinner, I might write up the dinner plan there, so I remember any good ideas I have for dessert or accompaniments! 

Most recently, we've been using it to keep track of staple ingredients that we run out of (or are about to run out of) as we notice them. That way, when we come to do the weekly shopping, we can just check the whiteboard to see what we need to add to our shopping list in the way of any herbs, spices or other little things we might otherwise assume we have in the cupboard (because seriously, does salt ever run out?....Well, actually, yes, it does. And we remembered to restock because of our whiteboard list.)

The whiteboard sticks directly onto wood or metal (so you could put it on your fridge, if you wanted). Ours is stuck discreetly on the inside of a cupboard door. The best thing about the whiteboard is that it is re-stickable (not sure that's the word they actually used, but I like it!) - so I had it stuck to a cupboard in our old flat, but when moving day came, it couldn't have been simpler to peel it off the door, transport it (I stuck it to a plastic poly pocket just to keep the sticky side clean during the journey), and then reapply it to a cupboard door in our new flat. So another great one for us renters - or anyone who likes the idea of being able to move their notes around the kitchen, or simply not damage nice wooden cupboard doors.

I bought it from Staples for (I think) £5, and the non-permanent markers were from there too (can't remember the price, but it was reasonable too). Annoyingly, I can't see this product on their website any more, so if you know where to find these, please let me know in the comments, as I'd highly recommend them!