Lentil Taco Salad

Double recipe post! :) (Since I've been so neglectful to the blog this month...)

I know it is hard to see the nutritional goodness of the lentils underneath all the cheese and sour cream I put on top, but trust me, it's there. I am posting an altered recipe based off of one I found in the lentil cookbook I borrowed from the library.

Lentil Taco Salad
Filling Ingredients
1/2 cup lentils, rinsed (do not soak, just rinse)
1 cup water
2 oz green chiles (1/2 a 4 oz can)
4 oz corn (1/2 a 8 oz can)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 medium onion, minced
1.5 tsp chile pepper powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 cup salsa
1/4 green bell pepper, chopped

Put lentils, water, onion, garlic, and spices in a pot. Bring the water to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes (or until lentils are just barely tender), stirring occasionally. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Let sit so the flavors blend. Cool if desired.

While the salad is getting its flavor on, cook taco salad shells according to package directions. Once shells are cooked (and cooled for like 2 minutes), add the lentil goodies and top with your desired amount of cheese and sour cream.

Note: You will have leftover corn and green chiles unless you make a double recipe. I threw mine into some mac n cheese sauce with a can of unsalted diced tomatoes and poured it on top of cooked macaroni for a Tex-Mex mac n cheese.

Spring Rolls

So, sorry about being away for a while. It's been a busy month, but I'm back on the last day to post pics/recipe from my (vegan) dinner two nights ago- SPRING ROLLS. =)

Here's what my finished roll looked like. (<---)
Traditionally, this Vietnamese dish is a rice paper roll wrapped around rice noodles (rice vermicelli), bean sprouts, mint leaves, shrimp and pork, and dipped in a sauce made from Hoisin sauce, water, and crushed peanuts. For my version, I replaced the shrimp/pork with carrots and snow peas. Carrots and snow peas (and the crushed peanuts) have protein although they're obviously not as protein packed as meat. (Which really isn't a bad thing considering diseases like diabetes come from too much protein consumption.)

Sauce Ingredients
2 Tbsp Hoisin sauce or so, depending how many people you're serving/spring rolls you're eating
1 tsp water or so, to thin
crushed peanuts

Sauce Instructions
Heat Hoisin sauce in the microwave, about 30-40 seconds. Add water to thin sauce until it is less thick than originally, but is not liquid. Add crushed peanuts. Stir.

Roll Ingredients
1 pkg rice vermicelli (there will be leftovers)
2 handfuls bean sprouts, root end picked off, soft sprouts discarded (they're old/bad)
1/2 pkg Thai mint
handful of baby carrots or 1 medium carrot, peeled
handful of snowpeas

Roll Instructions
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Boil noodles for 8 minutes, then rinse in cold water (This ensures the noodles aren't too sticky). Let stand, cool. Rinse all vegetables thoroughly. Julienne the carrots (cut them into thin sticks). To prepare the wrappers themselves, just run them under a slow stream of cool tap water, on both sides until they are wet, but not soaked. Now, if you have the special spring roll plates that have little holes in them for the water to drain through, then use them and stack the prepared wraps up, 1 wrap per plate. If not, then prepare rolls one at a time. Take about a handful of the cool (room temperature really) noodles, and place it in the middle of the wrap. Top with the vegetables. Roll it together burrito style, then dip in the sauce and enjoy.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day/Happy Birthday America! :)

Here was my American-fusion dinner. :)

It looks like typical 4th fair- burger and fries with some sort of side, plus some alcohol, right? Well first off, it's a veggie burger (of course!). Second, the side dish is where our fusion comes in! I made "sweet and sour lentils with fine noodles", a recipe which I got from a recipe book I checked out from the library on Friday. (Yay for free cookbooks for temporary periods!) The recipe is from Lentil and Split Pea Cookbook, edited by Merilee Frets. Now I don't want to get into any legal trouble for sharing the recipe itself, but I'll let you know a little bit- it's a side dish with lentils and ramen noodles with carrots, bell pepper (which I didn't have), and onions (supposed to be green, I had yellow) in a homemade sweet and sour sauce, it's DELICIOUS, and if you can get a hold of the cookbook, it's on page 157.

Now not all of the recipes in this cookbook are vegetarian, but that works well for me since my boyfriend isn't a vegetarian and I cook for him too. I chose to borrow this cookbook from the library because well, it was what I needed- I'm a vegetarian on a college student budget, and lentils, split peas, and beans are more in my college kid budget than tempeh and tofu are protein-wise. Also, the non-vegeatrian recipes give me a chance to prove to Brian that lentils and split peas are not the horror he seems to think that they are from when he looked at my lentil curry or vegan split pea soup, making him more likely to try the vegtarian ones.

Edamame

"Ed-uh-mom-ay"
I think...that's what my friend told me when I said "Ed-uh-mAm".

One of the things I've had on hand this month is a bag of frozen edamame pods to cook as a side dish or snack or even a dinner (as is the case tonight). Basically, it's non-fermented soy beans in their pods. To cook the frozen stuff I have, I bring water to a boil, add the frozen pods, and cook it 5-6 minutes. Then I drain out the water and shell them.

For my dinner tonight, I threw the shelled beans on top of some leftover rice from the other day, seasoned with a little bit of rice vinegar, salt, and pepper.

I don't like them all that much- they're pretty plain on their own, but they were cheap and they pack a lot of nutritional benefits. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_edamame_beans_good_for_you

Do you have any yummier recipes? Cause I could use them if you do. :)

Lentil Love

So dinner tonight was red lentils served with some roasted red pepper tomato sauce on top. :) It was delicious and filling (and cheap!).

Recipe:

1 cup red lentils

1.5 cups water

tomato sauce of choice to taste

In a thick pot (if you have one...unfortunately I don't) bring the water to a boil. Add lentils. Boil for 2 minutes, then reduce heat and cover. Stir frequently so they don't burn. Mine only took 15 minutes to cook, but yours might take more or less time. Meanwhile, warm sauce. When lentils are ready, serve them and pour sauce on top like spaghetti sauce on spaghetti. :)

Serves 2.