Interesting way to stumble into a new recipe for this week. Neither of us wanted to go to the grocery store, and we are limited eating out (one of my listed goals), so we were limited to what was on hand for dinner (and the refrigerator was looking a little sparse). It ended up that we actually tried a new recipe by accident, in that we looked in the fridge, consulted about what we had and what looked good, then made something up.
It turned out marvelous.
Since we didn’t follow a real recipe, but explored what was available, it went something like this:
Ingredients:
Approximately 5 or 6 cut bacon pieces, cut into pieces (before cooking). Sautee until firm, not crisp yet.
one medium sized carrot, shredded.
2 celery ribs, chopped.
one medium sized onion, chopped. Added all three veggies to bacon and cooked until translucent.
one garlic clove, chopped. Added to pot and cook briefly.
1 to 2 cups of lentils (depending on how many are eating). Add 1 1/2 cups of water to each cup of dried lentils.
The water part is tricky. If there isn’t enough when it cooks, you can add more. If there is too much, you can either pour some off, or add a cube of chicken bullion and make a decent lentil soup. So far, we have just eaten it as a main dish, no soup. Although – soup would rock now that I think of it.
I wanted to add a can of diced tomatoes from the pantry, but hubby is not a big tomato fan. I think it would have made a wonderful addition, but honestly, it tasted fantastic as it turned out!
Served it with a side green salad and hubby put his required garlic croûtons on the lentils instead. He said it did incredible things – the combination of crunchy garlic bread and soft garlic-y lentils.
Definitely a keeper recipe. Like I said, we made it two nights in a row just to try it again.
