red lentils

zippychick

Hi Jcr

I love the sound of that cheese and lentil loaf!:j

I must admit i need to be more adventurous with lentils! Lentil curry is always good - or have you tried making a dahl? My fave lentil recipe is using a ham hock to make carrot and lentil soup

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Some of the threads cover things you haven't asked about - butter beans for example, but i thought i would link to them anyway to give you more inspiration.

Let us know how you get on, and I'll merge this later once you get more input

thanks:A
Zip

Hippeechiq

carriebradshaw wrote: »

yes it freezes very well

Excellent! Definitely gonna have a bash at it now. Thank you Though frustratingly, it'll have to wait until next week as my mushrooms are spoken for in this weekends' recipe

I make a chilli con carne with lentils instead of using mince, use red lentils usually. I boil the lentils for 3 minutes in the microwave first and then add them to the browned onions and garlic. Add a can of tomatoes, dried kidney beans (boiled for 20 mins first to remove the toxins), some dried chilli & some dried herbs, some black pepper and usually a glug or two of red wine if I happen to have a bottle open. Bit of tomato puree to thicken and then simmer for 40 minutes or so - goes with rice and even my meat eating dh &ds enjoy it. Also make a spag bol in much the same way - just leave out the kidney beans and the chilli. A couple of meals like this each week saves quite a bit of money in not having to buy meat - also lentils have quite a lot of health benefits.

That's a very good idea BOGOF Queen and the above sound very nice indeed. I'm in the process of trying to incorporate at least one veggie meal a week. Lentils and pulses are all a bit new to me, and I have to have an exact recipe to follow as I'm still unsure how much to use, especially when using lentils, but I'm enjoying the discovery

What I've started to do this last month is to try out 1 new vegetarian recipe each weekend. Couple of weeks ago it was Shepherdess Pie, which was lush, last weekend it was Ratatouille Pasta with Feta Cheese which was quite vile :rotfl: although I've no idea why. This weekend it's Spicy Mushroom & Bean Chilli, which I'm hoping will be nice I figure if every other recipe is a success, I'll soon have enough recipes to have one veggie meal a week and thus cut down on my food bill too - if I can find enough recipes for two a week, even better

mardatha

Home made soup?

carriebradshaw

Hippeechiq wrote: »

Excellent! Definitely gonna have a bash at it now. Thank you Though frustratingly, it'll have to wait until next week as my mushrooms are spoken for in this weekends' recipe

just make it without them, I used to and it's just as nice

Hippeechiq

Don't suppose I'll be lucky enough to find anyone online, but just in case....I feel fairly stupid for having to ask but the fact is I've never boiled lentils before and I'm not sure what I should expect them to look like

I brought them to the boil in the 500ml of water, but they were tender almost immediately, so to prevent them from ending up as 'mush' I took them off the cooker. There is still a little water in the saucepan and I'm unclear whether to drain the pan, or whether the liquid should go into the loaf or not? I'm ready to mix it all together, but don't know what to do with the little excess water that there is....anyone out there? (she asks hopefully)

zippychick

I;ve never cooked lentils on their own, but they do go mushy. If they have "bite" i would guess they are undercooked. Or, i completely overcook my lentils he he!

I would drain the water as the egg is the binding ingredient.

I would also be crossing my fingers and hope it worked he he!

Hippeechiq

You're a little star - thank you :kisses3:

Tis now in the oven I've no idea what it was supposed to look like prior to cooking, or how 'stiff' or 'loose' the mixture was supposed to be, but it looked promising in it's 'raw' state.

Will try and get back on later to tell you how it turned out, if not, it may be tomorrow.

Thanks again for your help zippychick

zippychick

Ah great! Not a problem - I hope i gave the right advice:eek::D

liz545

jcr16 wrote: »

i have a fab recipe for a spilt pea and carrot loaf which is yum. but i fancy something different.

Could you post the split pea and carrot loaf recipe? I've got tonnes of split peas because I keep thinking I've run out when I'm doing the shopping!

Hippeechiq

mardatha wrote: »

Home made soup?

Neither of us are soup lovers unfortunately mardatha but thanks for the suggestion

Well, it smelt very nice when I got it out of the oven, and although the overall taste is very nice, there's 'something' amiss that I can't quite put my finger on. There's a very slight flour-i-ness after-taste if that makes sense to anyone (given that there isn't any flour in it) although it could well be that I'm not overly familiar with the 'texture' of lentils, and it's supposed to be like that?

To be fair, I think the lentils might be the culprit....
The packet said boil rapidly for 10 mins, skim off any scum and then cook for a further 20-30mins until tender. However, I brought mine to the boil, put the timer on for 10mins, but after 5, almost all the water had absorbed, and they were very 'mushy'.
The recipe said to cook until almost all the water has absorbed, and as it had, I stopped cooking them, otherwise I would have had something akin to puree in my saucepan....or maybe that's what I should have had? And should I have drained the excess water from them? (I did)

I cooked it for an hour, as it took that long to reach the 'golden on top' stage. It's very moist (almost wet) inside, and once sliced, if you hold the slice at the edge when eating it, it breaks in half. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but again, I have no idea if this is how it's meant to be.

Maybe had I cooked it longer it would have been drier and it wouldn't have that flour-i-ness texture/aftertaste thing going on? :think:

I added 2tsp of Lazy Garlic (thought 3 might be a bit strong for us) and 1 tsp of dried mixed herbs, as I've never been a fan of fresh herbs. I think if I make it again, I'd used 2tsp.

Considering this is my first attempt at anything like this, I'm really quite pleased :T And any imperfections are down to me not really knowing what I'm doing :rotfl: rather than a fault with the recipe

Would welcome some feedback about the texture and what I should have done with/at the lentil stage