You’re shocked, right? No chocolate, and no sprinkles today!
You might not know it from my recent posts, but I promise I don’t sit around all day eating chocolatey desserts… Today I’ve decided to break the “desserts-only” streak, on which I’ve been for the past month or so, with a savory recipe featuring one of my fave legumes: the lentil!
When I do make a lentil dish, I always say to myself, “I should cook with lentils more often!” Such was the case with last night’s dinner.
Yumlicious Lentil Curry
(Lentils… perfect for Lent!)
- 2-4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 large onions, diced
- 4 carrots, chopped
- Optional: 2 zucchini, sliced
- 3 minced garlic cloves (about 1 tbsp)
- 1 (28 ounce) can plum tomatoes
- 1 cup (7 ounces) lentils (See the note below this recipe, in regards to whether to use 1 cup uncooked or cooked)
- 2 cups vegetable stock
- 2 teaspoons mild curry powder
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped (I use 1/2 tsp dried)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
- optional: pepper (I only use a small dash)
- 1 tablespoon good-quality red wine vinegar
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and carrots and cook over medium low heat for 8-10 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. Add the garlic and cook 1 more minute. Be careful not to burn the garlic.
- Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes with a knife until they are coarsely chopped. Add the tomatoes (and the juice in the can), lentils, broth, curry powder, thyme, salt, and pepper to the pan. Raise the heat to bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer covered for about 40 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Check occasionally to be sure the liquid is still simmering.
- Remove from the heat and allow to sit covered for another 10 minutes. Add the vinegar. Season to taste and serve hot. Enjoy!
Cooking Mishap!
The original recipe, based off one from The Barefoot Contessa, is supposed to be for lentil curry. So I could not figure out why mine looked more like soup. Finally I realized: when it called for 1 cup lentils, it meant un-cooked. I’d used 1 cup canned! Oops!
All was not lost, however. I simply drained the liquid and poured it into a separate container. This gave me the curry for which I’d hoped… and now I had the most delicious, broth-y soup, besides. Two dishes from one recipe!
And just because it wouldn’t be a CCK post without chocolate…
OMG that looks fabulous!!!! I LOVE lentils and I LOVE curry. This looks perfect!!! 🙂
I also definitely make my fair share of cooking mishaps! But they don’t always turn into something good 🙁 I have an incapability of following recipes, and sometimes it shows! Maybe you could teach me how to tweak recipes into something good? 😉
I definitely don’t photograph everything I eat… I’m often like you – I just want to eat!! And sometimes when I take pictures, my food gets cold. I’ve considered putting a disclaimer on my blog that my recipes may not be good hot, but they’re amazing cold! 😉
<3
How to change a bad recipe into something good: Just throw a bunch of chocolate chips in there. Voila! Nothing can be bad with chocolate, right? 😉
On a more-serious note, I often will add a can of tomato sauce to a bland recipe, to jazz it up. Or a little soy sauce. And sometimes, if a sauce is getting lost in a recipe, you can always blend/puree it to make a yummy soup! I did that with a Thai curry once!
“And have you ever made a cooking mistake that turned out to be a good thing?”
Are you kidding me? That’s the majority of my cooking life. I plan things, but things dont go according to plan, and then I improvise and voila, something good results. Maybe not what I dreamt up in my mind, but totally acceptable…sometimes probably better than what i dreamt up.
And lentils…omg about 3-4 weeks ago I was on a lentil posting streak, raisin curry lentils, salsa lentils, lentils with potatoes, you name it, lentils were the deal. All from scratch in under 30 mins.
Great job on this! And yes the 1 c dry vs. cooked is why you had the excess liquid.
And your comment to me yesterday re photoshopping things…yes girl, cant believe everything/anything you see anymore!
I photograph my pretty meals. Sometimes things just don’t look great or I forget that I was going to take a picture of it, so I mix it all together.
I have like, 3 huge bags of lentils that I’ve never used. They intimidate me! I really need to use them up. I’d like to try this, daal, and snobby joes! Doe you have any other ideas of what I could do?
This is my favorite lentil recipe: https://lett-trim.today/2010/11/29/bread-less-vegan-stuffing/%3C/a%3E%3Cbr /> Use 1 cup of the lentils for a thicker gravy-like sauce… and I REALLY have found that organic carrots just do NOT compare (taste-wise) to the sweetness of non-organic carrots. Go figure!
What an awesome recipe!! I’m the same way, I have no problem making recipes for sweets and baked goods..but am seriously lacking in the actual food department. 😉
Haha I can’t take pictures of everything I eat! I always serve up more smaller portions, instead of one or two big ones– so it’s hard to photograph that :). I will eat lots of little things, too.
I think I have definitely made mistakes in cooking that ended well. Only thing is, I cant think of any right now– but I can tell you one my mom did! For my birthday cake, she made a half batch of a brownie recipe that we all love and put it in one round cake pan. When it came out we all remarked how dense, moist, and fudgie it was. Turns out she cut the flour in half– but forgot to cut the liquid! It ended up being a fugdie brownie cake and it was awesome!
VEGirl
Fudge brownie cake? Is your mom for hire? 😉
Lentils are the BEST!! I have them pretty often…I put that down to my Indian momma always keeping a huge stash in the house! 😛 But I am SO making this soon!! I love lentils! 😀
And trust me, there’s NOTHING wrong with posting sweet recipes every day! I make and eat them all!! 😀
P.S. Awww THANKS for entering my giveaway!! That’s SO sweet about you not entering usually!! You are the kindest girl ever, you know that?! 🙂
You have an Indian momma? Lucky!! Indian food is one of my favorite cuisines… but there’s only ONE good Indian place around here (I went for my b day). One of my good friends, in high school, was Indian, and her house ALWAYS smelled SO freakin good!
And lol well actually I did enter one other contest before, a few years ago… the host had no other comments and I felt awful :(. So I won some homemade cookies, but my mom made me throw them out because I didn’t know the sender :(.
You just reminded me that I have a big ol’ bag of lentils in my pantry! I think I’ll make something with them. 🙂
Love lentils! And no we do not photography everything, we eat way too much for that, haha
I love lentils and I love curry, so this is awesome. 🙂
Great idea! I use chickpeas for curry all the time, but I never thought to use lentils.