persimmonfrost | Entries tagged with lentil

There's no point to doing this project unless I start digging down and using some of the less attractive stuff that's sitting in my pantry, by which I mean, food items that I look at and think, "What the hell was I thinking when I bought that?" One of those things is a whole array of lentils. I have a jar of green, half a jar of black and a metric fucktonne of red lentils. I suppose I bought them during one of my bouts of "I'm going to get healthy/go vegan/be an earth mother" and the good thing is that they can sit there forever and not really suffer for it. The bad thing is that they're always sitting there staring accusingly at me.

So this morning, I cooked up some lentils because I wanted to make a lentil salad. I'd found a couple of interesting recipes on the internet and really wanted to give it a try. I used green, red and black because I thought it'd be nice to have a multi-colored salad. Yeah you lentil eaters know what I'm going to say. What I got out of the pot was a big, mushy glop of black lentils. So now I know to cook them for a shorter time and to NOT cook black lentils with anything else. They were too mushy for salad so I stirred them up with olive oil, lemon juice, a packet of dip mix from Wildwood Specialty Foods (Jalapeno-green chile) and some lemon-garlic marinade from The Spice House. Roasted, chopped walnuts and salt to taste, and I have a KILLER dip. I am not kidding when I say it was so good that I kept on eating way past where I should have stopped and now I'm regretting it. I also regret that I won't be able to reproduce it because that dip mix was from a store in the wilds of Wisconsin (The Elegant Farmer; they make pies that are to die for.) and the company website is pretty unhelpful.

Well really, I shouldn't say I won't be able to reproduce it. I've got a list of what's in the mix: onions, garlic, jalapeno pepper, green chili pepper, parsley and chives. So I know it's an oniony mix, and that the amount of garlic in it wasn't enough to get the flavor I wanted so I'd need extra garlic in any event. The peppers are easy as is the parsley, so I can probably get close with what I have in my spice cabinet. This is a great thing because it's a pretty healthy dish, and also versatile. I can use it as a dip, a spread, or mix it into broth for a soup. I'm sure I'll think of other applications.

I also finally baked the tofu I'd been marinating for several weeks (not on purpose, I just got sidetracked) and it's really tasty. I marinated it in Litehouse sesame ginger salad dressing and baked it @ 350 for half an hour. Then I turned off the heat and let it sit. The result is that I have cubes of tofu with the consistency of soft caramel and a fantastic flavor. I've been snacking on them right out of the fridge. I haven't been too nuts about the Litehouse line as dressings, but as marinades they're really very good. I see they have a new cherry vinaigrette that looks tempting.

I expect I'm babbling on here about healthy food in part because I've been taking a lot of flak about my review of "The Blood Sugar Solution." Now bear in mind that I gave the book four stars and said that I thought it was a valuable resource. Apparently that's not good enough for the rah-rah brigade. They're all over me because I suggested that 1) the process might be too expensive to jump into feet first and 2) that it might be too huge a change for many people, and perhaps a slower approach could bring people to the same point with less attrition. Since the review went live two days ago I've been informed that anyone can do the program you just have to want to do it, with the unspoken implication that those who can't do it are somehow morally deficient and didn't want to from the get-go. I've also been told that if you can afford a burger you can afford the program. Leaving out the cost of the book for a moment, I would say that a $3 burger is vastly different from having to throw out all the food in your house and start over with only approved items.

So far I've been responding politely, though the last comment which accused me of pre-programming my own failure, got a snarky response. But I have to admit I'm losing patience. I don't consider haranguing to be valuable motivation. If someone asks for your cheerleading, then by all means break out the pom-poms and the brass band. I wrote a positive review which expressed some concerns. I didn't say it was impossible, I didn't say not to try, I didn't say it could never work. I said, take a moment to consider your needs and prioritize them. Then approach the program with those priorities in mind, always intending to reach the point where you do spend those six weeks eating the way Dr. Hyman suggests.

On the plus side, 116 of 120 people thought my review was valuable to them. That's only four people who didn't, the four presumably, who left comments.

And finally, on my way back from the garbage cans this afternoon, I noted that the garlic sprouts are starting to get quite tall. That's exciting. Our garlic was excellent last year and this year we'll be using garlic grown from garlic that we grew ourselves. How cool is that? I'm looking forward to the first scapes in late spring. Glinda and I have been talking about the garden all winter, and one of the biggest thrills, for me at least, is seeing it start to come to life. The chard is still coming up -- we have a local bunny who grazes on it -- and I see the first buds on the nectarine,which means it's time to get out there and prune. The mint is sprouting along with all the bulbs, and the ferns never died back. They're big and lush and green; even more so than they were in the fall.

Frankly, we didn't have much of a winter and that worries me, but at the same time I'm really looking forward to spring this year.