More Lentil Balls

Every time I get lost in my kitchen, I cast out in the darkness for a helping hand and who do I find?  My good friend Beluga.  Beluga Lentil, that is, and he never ceases to amaze me with his solutions to my ponderings, as in today's :'what can an anti-candida, gluten-free vegan eat?

Answer: More lentils.  In ball form, they look less like lentils, which is good, because i'm starting to see them even with my eyes closed this week.  These, however, could be falafel with a suntan, and I didn't think once about the fact that I was eating lentils.  Again.

Simple Double-Lentil Balls

I was out of lemons, but I think a litle lemon juice in here would have been fantastic. For non-ACD eaters, add a splash each of apple cider vinegar and braggs for some kick.

1 cup beluga lentils

1 cup red lentils

1/2 cup amaranth

1 leek or onion, chopped

1 turnip, grated

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tbsp fresh chopped rosemary

6 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbsp sesame oil

1-4 cup pumpkin seeds

Add 3 cups of water to the lentils and amaranth in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, cover, and cook until the water is absorbed and the red lentils have broken down (add more water if necessary).  Stir vigorously and cook until the mix is very thick and sticky. 

stir in the rest of the ingredients, reserving the oil and pumpkin seeds.  Mix together into a thick dough.  Roll about 2 tbsp of dough into a ball, brush with oil, and stick 2 pumpkin seeds into the top.  Place on a parchment-lined or grased baking sheet and repeat until you used it all. Bake for about 30 minutes, until browned and crispy on the inside.  

Serve with Lemon Zatar Yogurt Dressing or Luscious Tahini Whip for a protein-ilicious vegan main dish.  Or, toss with rice noodles and tomato sauce and you have spaghetti and meatballs!

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Enchanted Broccoli Forest-Fire: A toasty stove-top rendition of the classic casserole

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, one of Mollie Katzen's many beautiful cookbooks, is one that I treasure. Daniel and I got a copy in the states when we visited last summer and backpacked around for two months with it gingerly wrapped in layers of bags so as to get it safely back to the old continent. Here, we hoard it like miserly jewel-collectors, rarely daring to open its gleaming depths to those who pass through Dani's kitchen, where it sits discreetly behind a Moosewood. After all, cookbooks like that are hard to come by here, and you never know what a Swiss foodie might do if she discovered there was more to the kitchen than cheese and bread, so we like to initiate people here to the land of good veggie cooking step by step...

Anyway, the cover recipe, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest itself, is amazing, delicious, wonderful, and today, I wanted it bad. However, being the anti-candida eater I am right now, I felt a little weird eating a meal mostly consisting of rice. Also, I just didn't want to deal with baking anything. It's so warm, the birds are singing, the windows are blowing open in the breeze...all this scene is missing is the sizzle and pop of some nutty roasted quinoa.

By using quinoa as my grain, I'm eating a lot more protein and a lot fewer carbs than if I had used the usual brown rice, and lentils are even lower in carbs, being in the legume family. Plus, they're downright nutritious and delicious. We have heaps of Birsmattehof spinach (fresh from our local organic farm), and i just bought broccoli, and Hari gave me some of the succulent little sundried tomatoes Niki brought back from Israel, so it seems we have a contestant for today's mind-blowing anti-candida cookoff (a competition taking place solely in my head, but none-the-less a worthwhile pursuit). For those of you who don't have candida problems, feel free to spice it up a bit with with...whatever. I actually don't know why you'd want to improve on this amazing dish, I just keep imagining that everyone who can eat sugar must be enjoying something I'm not. But not today. No sirree, I've got one up on sugar cravings this evening.


Enchanted Broccoli Forest-Fire: a toasty stove-top rendition of the classic casserole (for 4)

1 cup quinoa
1 cup beluga lentils
1 medium head broccoli
a few massive handfuls of fresh spinach
1 stalk celery
1 onion, diced, and/or some chopped leek
10 sundried tomatoes (dry or in oil), chopped into strips
any additional veggies you may be craving/have on hand


juice of 1/4 lemon
1 tbsp fresh, chopped rosemary
odorous amounts of garlic (about 6 cloves), chopped
2 tbsp flax seed or flax seed meal
a tiny bit of sea salt
4 twists of fresh ground black pepper

optional: 10 activated almonds, chopped

Directions
Cook the lentils in water until tender, drain, and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat a medium skillet and add your quinoa. Stir almost continuously until the quinoa is browned and smells roasted, 2-3 minutes. Add 2 cups water to the quinoa, cover, and cook until the water is absorbed.

While that's going on, chop up the broccoli, almonds, rosemary, garlic, and all your other veggies (except the spinach).

When the quinoa is done, push it to the side in the pan and add the broccoli, leek, onions, rosemary, and other veggies that need a bit more cooking to the pan. Add a splash of water, cover, and reduce the heat, steaming the veggies for about 4 minutes, or until shiny and tender. then mix it all up, add all the rest of the stuff, and cook until it looks and tastes good, about 4 minutes.
I'm not telling you how to live your life here, but I highly recommend some Lemon Zatar Yogurt Dressing over a nice hot bowl of this for a zingy mediterranean flavor combo that's out of this world.

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Owed to a Bento: Kid-Friendly Lentil Snacks

“What’re THOSE?” Alessandro asked today, peering over my shoulder as I scanned eagerly through recipes on JustBento.com. He is probably the best friend I've ever had in a 5-year old, but none-the-less, a typically picky eater. We had just settled on a rice-cake with pesto for his snack, and his sauce-smeared finger swooped dangerously close to the screen as he motioned at a picture of Spicy Lentil snacks with Sesame Seeds. For once, his voice held no hint of skepticism, and I silently thanked his reading level, for being just right so that he couldn’t see that the main ingredient was lentils, something he’d never touch in native form.

I have been intrigued by bentos ever since finding them online yesterday, and I have been wanting to make some of these delicious-looking little lunch-box fillers. “Do you…” (could my luck be that good?) “do you want to try making them with me?” I ventured. He beamed an ecstatic “Yeah!” and we darted into the kitchen, digging out ingredients to see what we could come up with.

We had only about ¼ cup of dry red lentils left, so we needed to supplement, which is why the result is something much different than the original. That, and the fact that we were recreating Japanese-inspired vegan cuisine in an omnivorous Italian kitchen. First off, spicy had to go for the little guy to enjoy them, and I was on a mission to get some veggies into him, so they needed to be artfully disguised to avoid disgust. Pulling my tupperware of sliced purple cabbage out, I handed a piece to Alessandro for review. “Do you like this stuff?” He gingerly nibbled the corner and in a moment of total silence I was sure he would spit it out. Instead his eyes widened and he bounced noticeably as he said, “Wow, the purple thing is yummy!’


Bingo! It was so exciting to prepare something healthy for Alessandro that didn’t involve bread, cheese, or meat, his three favorite ingredients. He was relegated to carrot-peeling (under wary over-the-shoulder supervision…”don’t give 5-year-olds blades!” My mom’s voice seemed to echo…) and I cooked the rice. Then he retired for some Lego-building while I whipped up the other ingredients. We formed the balls together, discussing seriously techniques for making perfect ball-shapes and using good sesame-rolling technique.

“It’s all sticky. Is this enough?” he asked, the mixture smeared across his palms and one piddly lump in the middle that he focused intently on. “Well, maybe we could add a little more and then go like this (patting hands together) to make a ball.” Alessandro carefully placed one more pea on top of his mushy lump and smiled. “There, is that enough?” Sure, why not! Sure enough, we had a fantastic array of sizes and shapes when we finished. Though we ate from plates, the bento-spirit was certainly there: we each had just enough food, a healthy array of proteins, carbs, vegetables, and healthy fats, and we still managed to save some for mom and dad. Barely.



Baked Veggie-Lentil Bites with Sesame Seeds and Olives

Ingredients:

• ½ cup dry brown rice
• ¼ cup dry red lentils
• 1 medium potato
• 2 medium-large carrots
• ¾ cup sliced purple cabbage
• ½ cup green peas (frozen, fresh, whatever)
• ½ cup sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tsp oregano
• 2 tsp mixed Italian herbs, or any combination of basil, thyme, and marjoram
• a few grates of nutmeg
  
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• ½ onion, diced
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp lemon juice
  
• salt and pepper to taste
• 10 kalamata olives, pitted and slices into rings

Directions:

1. Bring brown rice and 1 cup of water to a boil, cover, reduce heat to the lowest temperature, and cook until finished. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, put sesame seeds in a bowl with 1 cup of water to soak (activation!)
3. Chop the cabbage into tiny pieces and grate the carrots as finely as possible
4. Chop the potato and add to a pan with the lentils and ¾ cup water. Cover and cook until everything is soft. Leave them on the flame and mash them together with a fork, stirring to remove any excess moisture until you have a fairly uniform, sticky mixture. Set aside
5. Preheat the oven to 180 C (360 F)
6. In a frying pan, heat the oil and add the onions, garlic, and herbs. Sautee over low-medium heat until the onions are soft.
7. Stir in the cabbage and cook, stirring, for a minute or two, until shiny.
8. Add the rice and cook for another few minutes, stirring, until everything is coated with oil and herbs, but not dry.
9. Mix everything together except for the sesame seeds and olives. Add salt and pepper to taste and mush everything together more, either with a fork or a hand mixer, until it is fairly pasty and most of the rice is crushed.
10. Drain the water from the sesame seeds.
11. When cool enough to handle, form golf-ball sized balls with the mush and roll each in the wet sesame seeds very lightly. Place on a baking sheet and stick an olive ring on top.
12. Bake for about 30 minutes, checking with an occasional poke to test for solidity. They should be browned on the outside and still moist on the inside, with a strong enough outer layer to hold them firmly together. Enjoy!

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Summery Lemon-Lentil Salad

Last year I was left flat broke with nothing but a ticket for the Sziget festival when my wallet was stolen in Poland. I decided, 'well, there are worse places to be money-less than an awesome festival,' so I continued on to Hungary and camped out with Couchsurfers. As I had accommodation costs covered with my borrowed tent (thank you Gregoire!), I was left with no worries. Except...what to eat...

Well, to be honest, with all the drunken festival-goers buying food and leaving it literally untouched on the picknick tables around, all I really had to do was sit at one and wait for a steaming plate of food to be stumbled away from. Which I did a few times. But with so many eating peculiarities (just try not eating dairy or meat at a festival in hungary...), and a sturdy craving for something better, I scraped together my change and trekked off Margit-Sziget to the Auchan supermarket in search of a good meal.

I returned, after a thorough perusal of the food aisles, with the cheapest "meal ingredients" in the place (at least, from things that didn't need to be cooked): canned lentils, tomatoes, carrots, a lemon (my luxury item), and garlic. This was to be the beginning of a long series of lentil salads which kept me going happily through even the weirdest circumstances in my travels.

The recipe here is a more domestic adaptation, including things like (gasp!) salt and other luxuries travellers rarely posess. It is extremely flexible, and is a fantastic way to eat a satisfying meal in summer that still keeps your stomach light and unburdened. Fresh herbs and seasonal veggies are always, always better, so if you can manage to get to somewhere other than the bargain section of Auchan, I reccommend varying to fit your environment!

Summery Lemon-Lentil Salad (serves 6 as a side salad.)

Ingredients (like I said, I'm lenient-be creative):

Salad:

• 4 cups cooked lentils, cooled (the small dark ones, dunno what they're called. just not any that will get mushy! you want them firm; aldente, we'll say)
• 2 large carrots
• 2 large ripe tomatoes (firm is best)
• 1 cucumber
  
• 1 small onion
• fresh basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley, marjoram...whatever, it's all good

Dressing:

• juice of 1 whole lemon, and a dash of grated zest if it's organic
• 2 tbps of your favorite salad oil (sesame is delicious)
• 1/2 tsp Braggs liquid amino acid, if you have it. Otherwise, soy sauce, tamari or salt to taste
• 2 tbsp apple cider or light wine vinegar
• a splash of balsamic vinegar
• as much garlic as you like raw
  
• add your own special seasoning-miso, paprika, curry, mustard, cumin, cardamom...

Directions:

1. Wash carrots and tomatoes, and any other veggies you're using.
2. Chop tomatoes, carrots, and cucumber into small cubes (creative carrot chopping techniques look nice too)
3. Finely dice the onion and herbs
4. Combine all of the above in a bowl
5. Press the garlic, mix up your dressing and add some water if needed to get a light, thin consistency.
6. Mix the dressing with the salad and chill. It tastes better after a few hours to combine flavors. Garnish with fresh herbs and lemon slices.
   

Notes:
Serve with bresh bread, on rice cakes, in wraps, over rice, and/or with the amazingly yummy Tahini Whip (highly reccommended)!

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