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.