Lentils.

There are two things that I am: Boring and a little Fun.

There are several things I wish I were: totally cool and healthy and one of those people who are like, "Yum, farro and lentils is my favorite dish ever!"

What is farro? According to NPR, it's an "ancient and complicated grain worth figuring out." Obviously, then, it's only for the cool, smart, healthy people who have time to figure out the deep, complicated psychosis of this noble grain.

As it turns out, I'm not quite up to "farro-level cool" yet, since I don't have a degree in Psychology with a specialty in Understanding Complicated Grains. But I'm totally down with lentils. That scores some cool points for me, right? (Wrong. I know. Totally wrong.)

Why do I tell you this? I'm not sure. I like pointless details. I assume you are totally interested in my feelings on lentils. Or maybe, I guess, because of the following tale of culinary triumph.

The Night I Was Not Defeated by Lentils

by A. Boring Fungal

 

I had some homemade chicken stock in the fridge that needed to be used. I dug through the pantry and found some French green lentils hiding behind the oatmeal. I make a pretty tasty lentil soup (did I just brag about that?) so I decided that's what I'd make to use the chicken stock. But as the evening drew near, I just didn't feel like making soup.

This=lentils

Determined to find something else I could make with my fancy French lentils and my holier-than-store-bought stock, I hopped onto the internet machine and typed in "what to make with lentils" and found a LOT of lentil recipes. I mean gobs and gobs of recipes. Apparently, lentils are the bees knees.

I feel like any day now Maclemore will write a song about eating lentils while sitting at his hand-me-down family table from the '60s and that will solidly cement my own status as the cool girl who ate lentils BEFORE Maclemore wrote songs about them.

Kind of like those people who were fans of the band "before they went mainstream *eyeroll and neck work*."

Any-ol'-way, while clicking around the intertubes, I came across a recipe on a blog called Simple Bites that caught my eye: Lentil Shepherd's Pie. Instead of beef, you had lentils as the base, topped with corn, then mashed sweet potatoes.

Part of me said, "Interesting. That might be worth a try."

Another part of me said, "This could be Punkin' Joes all over again. Tread very, very carefully."

I scanned over the ingredient list and saw that I had everything but the small onion it called for. Figuring this dish wouldn't die a sad, slow, lentil-y death without onion, I charged forward. I threw caution to the wind. I grabbed the bull by the horns. Other cliches, too.

I cooked lentils in chicken stock. I mashed sweet potatoes. I seasoned the lentils. Then assembly began. I dumped the lentils in my baking dish, scattered the corn over that, then spread out a pile of sweet potatoes on top. I popped it in the oven and decided that I'd just have to leave the rest to God. (What? God cares about what I feed myself and my family.)

After 30 minutes, it was time to see whether I had a success or a Punkin' Joes level disaster on my hands.

With fear and trepidation, I set the table and fixed our plates. We sat down and Patrick said the before-meal prayer. He didn't pray for the meal to not suck, so I was still worried.

"Let's hope it doesn't suck."
"It won't suck; it smells good."
"This could be Punkin Joes again. It could suck. Like really bad."

Slowly I loaded my fork. Hesitantly I raised the fork to my mouth, and paused, taking a breath. Then, on a wing and a prayer, I put the food in mouth.

I chewed slowly at first, trying to see if I could detect anything disgusting before too much of the food was on its way down my throat. 'Cause if I did, I was ready to spit it out. But, wait--it didn't seem disgusting. I relaxed a bit and chewed more thoroughly.

No, it's not disgusting! It's actually... am I right, here?--this is actually kind of good!

My spirits soared as I realized, it's not awful; it's good! It's not just edible, but it's tasty! Oh heavens! Thank you, God!

Tiny men burst out of the salt cellar on the table and did an Irish jig. Disney birds fluttered around the table singing songs of joy and exultation. Lizzie sat on the floor and stared at me, looking bored.

Fine, only one of those three things happened. I leave it to you to guess which one.

But seriously, it turned out to be quite good. Patrick even liked it, and he's not exactly a spokesperson for the National Council on Lentils and Other Small Legumes. The only problem I had with the meal is this:

Lentils=carbs
Corn=carbs
Sweet potato=carbs
Me=not supposed to eat lots of carbs (oh, Beetus!, you cruel mistress!)

Because of my old friend, Tha Beetus, I had a reasonable portion of the shepherd's pie (as opposed to how much I wanted, which is much more than a reasonable portion) and a small salad to go with it.

Pat me on the back and give me a gold star for being the best diabetic in my house that night.

 So fab, amiright?

 

To top off my immense pleasure at being the cool girl who made a meal with lentils that did not suck, I realized that it was a tasty, and filling, meatless meal. If there's one thing cooler than liking lentils, it's being on the bandwagon for having meatless meals some nights of the week. 'Cause, ya know, it's healthy and cheaper and famous people do it, so it's definitely something we should be doing, like, yesterday.

And since I didn't snag a picture of it looking pretty in the baking dish last night, here it is scooped and dumped in my little lunch container the next day.
1) No, I'm definitely not a food photographer.
2) It doesn't exactly look pretty.
3) I'm still surprised at how much I ended up enjoying this dish.

Will this become my new go-to favorite dish of all time in the history of the world? No. Will everyone like it? Probably not. Will I make this again? Definitely, probably with a few tweaks to the seasonings to suit our tastes a little more. But if you want to be the kind of cool person who eats lentils and goes meatless and gets all of the friends because of how healthy and happy you are, this might be worth a shot.