My dinner tonight...for my glitter girl.

[plunkybug]

Made lightly curried basmati rice and lentils.

1/3 cup lentils, dried
3/4 cup of rice
1 1/2 cups water
Old Bay seasoning, a few shakes form the bottle
curry powder, a few pinches
chicken stock, a TBS or 2
oil or butter, a few tsp to 1 TBS

Did as much of the quick cook method of the lentils as I could (that's because I made a second batch--the first burned in the initial boil because I forgot about it while chatting online!) and added them and the soaking water to the rice mixture which I set up while waiting for the lentils to sit. Rice mixture was rice, a few shakes of the Old Bay seasoning, a few pinches of curry powder, water plus the stock, and oil. I added this to a small stoneware dish, along with the lentils and soaking liquid. Baked at 350F, then 400F for quite a while, until cooked. Alternately cooking on the stove would be faster, but I like using my stoneware, especially when the top crisps and browns. I did not add much of the lentil liquid, but in the end added about as much water/stock in the dish so it would have enough liquid to finish cooking. I ended up nuking the dish about 10 minutes in the microwave at the end*. So no exact time or science to it. I just played by ear, so to speak, and used my instincts.

I would have easily used canned lentils (and would have preferred it honestly to save time) and added them toward the end of the rice cooking time, but I have a big bag of dried lentils my mom gave me that I feel fit should be consumed before I buy canned or bottled ones.

The seasonings were really to my taste, but you could have had more or less of either seasoning to suit your tastes.

That's about it.


*God I love my Pampered Chef mini deep dish baker...it went from the oven to microwave without a problem!

Comments

[wundermuffin.livejournal.com]

i'm vegetarian, but aside from that, yum!

of course, i hail from india, so i eat that sort of stuff all the time, but... YUM!

[plunkybug.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd reply. You could use either vegetable stock or just plan H20 in place of the chicken stock and the dish is totally vegetarian. But sine I did not have any veg stock, and I did not want water, I went for the flavor (and mostly the saltiness) of the chicken stock.

Unfortunatley I had to use my common sense cooking skills and adapt as I went along, and it took way longer than I expected for it to cook...mostly on the side of the lentils.

[wundermuffin.livejournal.com]

i'm quite good at screwing up lentils. :) hehe.

i think my favorite super-easy super-quick low-effort dish is: put some oil in a pan to heat up. throw some tofu and onions on there to saute a bit. i usually add butter too, because the tofu soaks up the butter and buttery tofu is amazing. add some rice, turmeric powder, and curry powder. (i usually add LOTS of turmeric and a good amount of curry powder. i LOVE turmeric!) stir that up in the pan for a few minutes, then throw it all into a rice cooker, add the appropriate amount of water, throw some more spices into the water to cook into the rice, and then turn on the cooker. then go watch a TV show for the 20-30 minutes it takes for the cooker to cook.

i actually make that almost every day. only not always just tofu and onions. sometimes chickpeas, broccoli, whatever i can steal from the dining hall. :D

[plunkybug.livejournal.com]

If I had had my way, I would have sliced an onion and sauteed with the spices until translucent or golden and cooked it with the rice, and I would have added canned or bottled lentils partway through the cooking. I did not use that much curry...I wanted just a hint of it, to barely color the rice and add a hint of spice. I did not want it to overpower the dish. Adding cick peas would be good. I mainly made this the way I did because Chas was out, and we did not have much to eat. It was really a see what is in the pantry kind of dish. :)

[wundermuffin.livejournal.com]

i love when those come out well. like when you've made no plans and are just looking at what you have and making something based on that. and then you wind up making something better than you expected.

[plunkybug.livejournal.com]

It was not perfect, and I had to adjust it as I went along. Lucky I have that skill. I have enough for lunch for the next few days, and things like this get better with age.

[wundermuffin.livejournal.com]

mmmm. some things definitely taste better as leftovers, like yesterday's lunch for example, hehe. i guess the flavors mingle together better while sitting in the fridge overnight?

[plunkybug.livejournal.com]

I think that in this case that the flavors will meld over time, and I am hoping that the lentils, which were slightly underdone (in my haste to eat), will absorb a little more liquid and soften over time.

HERESY!!!

[glittergrrl69.livejournal.com]

*NOT* perfect? EVERYTHING YOU COOK IS PERFECT! Do not disagree with me or I shall come over and fling my feces at you! Blasphemer! The Cooking Goddess is ALWAYS PERFECT!

Re: HERESY!!!

[plunkybug.livejournal.com]

Ok,ok. Just chill out...CHILL OUT! :)