Here's a stolen idea, with a tip thought up entirely by yours truly. Ahem. Jacket potatoes filled with red lentil dahl covered in grated cheddar cheese.
This is so yummy you won't believe it, but the best thing is that it takes about 5 minutes to cobble together (and that includes getting the potatoes in the oven) at which point you can go out for an hour and a half and come back to instant food. It does worry me that I should use a word other than 'dahl' as this is probably a totally unorthdox way to eat it, let alone make it (done properly, you'd stir the onions, ghee, mustard seeds etc through the lentils once they're cooked). But doing it in the slow cooker (my tip!) means you don't have to watch the stove, and the lentils don't break up during cooking.
Incidentally, I always have plenty of red lentils on hand in my kitchen. An incredibly cheap source of protein, they also don't need soaking as other pulses so you don't need to have planned ahead. On a hot stove, they'll cook in only 15-20 minutes. Buy them from an indian shop instead of the supermarket for extra thriftiness, and always buy in bulk as they'll keep forever.
Cheat's Red Lentil Dahl
Red lentils
Onion, chopped
Garlic, finely chopped/crushed
Butter to fry
Curry powder or mixture of spices to your taste (in this I like more body and less chilli)
Vegetable stock
Salt
Lemon juice
Fry the onions and garlic in butter, stir in the spices, and put in the slow cooker with lentils and very hot stock. In my slow cooker (which is small and hotter than Rach's) it cooks to perfection in an hour and a half. Add lemon juice and salt to taste.
Put in jacket potatoes (maris pipers are well worth the extra pennies!) and cover with lots of cheese.
Yum.
Sorry, I have never weighed anything for this recipe and have no idea of how much I use of anything. So: don't be afraid of using plenty of red lentils, but do be aware that they swell up and absorb plenty of liquid (they'll need covering in stock).
Ok Rach, your turn.
Photo by Justin Cormack
1 comment:
(Just realised, I should probably post this here as well as on Rach's blog...)
You've got another subscriber here too. I want to try that dahl and baked potatoes dish.
I'd like to see some recipes with other beans and pulses too. As a serious carnivore, I think I need to start cutting meat out of some meals (especially since I'm slowly moving to buying organic meats which are more expensive and all that) and just using vegetables can get boring...
Anyway, the new blog is great. And if you'd not told me that your sister was co-writing it with you, I'd never have guessed. Your writing styles are pretty much exactly the same... which is definitely a good thing! :-)
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