Lentil Soup & Sprouting

Hello, how’s your Monday going? Mine consisted of a busy, yet dragging day at work, getting my first batch of kefir water brewing and moving along on my data/desk reorganization project while moving into a new laptop. I’ve also been playing with another fun thing hubby got me for my birthday, an Eye-Fi memory card for my digital camera. It’s a memory card with a built in wireless adapter that transfers pictures from your camera to computer automatically. It does require initial programming and a software client running on your computer, but thumbs up so far. It’s nice being able to leave my camera in the kitchen and find the photos already transferred. Or just walk in the house from a day of activities and simply turn the camera on to transfer pics to neatly organized dated folders.

For lunch I mixed leftovers from last night’s dinner – sauerkraut salad with baked curry tempeh chunks mixed in, the curry honey flavor on the tempeh went well with the mild sesame dressing on the salad.

Lately I’ve been focusing on eating healthy and cheaply, cutting costs and utilizing what I have where I can growing/producing more at home. For my birthday I got a simple jar sprouting kit with a variety of sprout seeds and started the first batch Saturday.

It’s a wild mix of dried lentils, chickpeas and other beans that I’d never think to sprout, very cool and it’s only been a day and a half. Supposedly this batch will be ready in two more days, can’t wait. I’m excited about this because sprouts aren’t cheap and I typically go through at least one container a week, so this will save me $5 a week or so. But it’s also a fun science experiment to keep and watch in the center of the kitchen. I have a more sophisticated multi-level sprout grower that uses special clothes, but I haven’t been using it because it’s kind of a pain to wash and the sprouts can’t get that big in the levels. Plus it’ll grow fuzz if I’m not on top of it. The jar allows me to grow smaller batches faster and being able to easily flush and rinse the sprouts easily multiple times a day.

Anyway, this is a great article about a dedicated raw foodie in the south.

But she cautions: “I don’t think people should be too fanatic. I think as soon as you become too stressed about what to eat and what not to eat, you lose that purpose of healing yourself and feeling better.”

So true and something anyone who’s suffered with disordered eating probably knows all too well. When first getting into raw, I struggled with this a bit, trying to maintain a high-percentage raw because it was healthy and probably voiding the benefits with the added stress. While I try to keep a high raw diet now, I have no problem giving into a cooked meal or an occasional non-raw treat. Tonight was one of those nights, I was craving something hot and rich. Currently I have a massive jar full of dried red lentils and a garden thriving in yellow squash and broccoli greens and decided to vegan-ize and add to a lentil recipe.

Sweet Red Lentil Stew

• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 cup dry red lentils
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 4 cups water
• 1 bunch broccoli greens, kale and/or collard greens
• 2 medium yellow squashes, sliced
• 1 tbsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Place 1 tbsp. olive oil, onion and salt in saucepan over medium heat and cook until onions are soft. Add lentils and water, then bring to boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Heat rest of oil in skillet over high heat, add yellow squash and greens and cook for about 10 minutes. Then pour into lentil mixture and add cumin, cinnamon and garlic. Simmer for another 10 minutes and enjoy.

Cinnamon and cumin are an unexpected, but fun combo of savory with a sweet finish and added a rich, smooth, comforting taste to the lentils. I’ll be frequently making this in the winter.