In honor of the recent lentil festival, I made a couple of yummy lentil dishes to accompany all of the amazing late summer produce available right now. The first recipe is a variation from a cookbook I’ve enjoyed spending time with over the past couple of years. The second is a pretty simple, “go-to” foundational lentil dish, where veggies and spices can be swapped out to create many different options. Both recipes were very economical to make and not very time-consuming, and I made a lot extra so it would be easy to heat up on-the-go as school has officially started again, now both of us are busy students again!
The lentil and brown rice pancakes are straight out of Sally Fallon’s cookbook – Nourishing Traditions. They do require some advanced planning because the raw lentils and rice are soaked overnight with lemon juice and then blended and soaked for another 24 hours with salt, before being mixed together and fried up as Indian-style pancakes. There is some nutrition philosophy behind this extensive soaking process, that claims it should optimize digestion and support a healthy gut-micro-biome.
The pancakes turned out to be very good and versatile with a bit of fermented background flavor, like a kombucha pancake– I made a lot at once and we had them as easy “grab and go” breakfast, lunch and dinner with both sweet and savory toppings.
The photo at the top, shows them served with summer fruit (including pears), from the special that Wilson Banner Ranch has been running at the Pullman Farmer’s Market as everyone comes back to school. I poached the fruit for about 20 minutes in red wine with a bit of honey, and were another thing that were great as part of an anytime meal!
The pancakes were also delicious served with these beauties that we got in our CSA box!
Some of our good friends just had a baby, I’m really excited for them and it was a great opportunity to share some yummy lentils and veggies with them, as they transition into being new parents! I intended this as a base recipe, that they could spice however they liked –
It started with stir frying a whole bunch of farmer’s market veggies, like onions, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and zucchini up in a pan
Then adding the lentils and some water (about 2 cups water for each cup of lentils), and let them simmer until the lentils are tender – your favorite spices (curry, Italian blend…) can be added to this dish at pretty much any stage
Then, enjoy celebrating high-protein lentils while serving this delicious, hearty and healthy dish to your friends and family!
Lentils are so versatile and delicious (and so many different kinds of lentils!) – please share your favorite ways to eat them, in the comments!
Always with gratitude- especially to Shane McFarland for helping to clean up the messes I make!