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Unphotogenic Food: Lentils and Cheese
My husband occasionally accuses me of eating garbage food: a bowl of yuck (or yum?) cobbled together from leftovers and soon-to-be-rotting vegetables. I think this is a grand way to eat and not (heaven forbid, for real) to get into a he-said/she-said I’m From Venus and You’re A Douchebag type thing, but I rarely chide or even comment when he buys a bag of gooey boneless riblets in sauce from Costco, only to later discover they are grodie.
I leave him out of my legume endeavors and happily simmer a big old pot of white beans to blend with garlic and spinach or my famous one can black beans/one can corn/add salsa = presto, salad. Today is as chilly, rainy and gray as it gets in Yucatan and I wanted something hearty. So I thinly chopped a leek, sauteed it in olive oil with 2 carrots and 4 cloves of garlic, added a can of cubed tomatoes, a box of chicken stock and a bag of lentils, and let it simmer for an hour.
What developed was decidedly not a soup. It’s delicious but not pretty. A big scoop topped with a blend of Italian cheeses, broiled until browned and melty is the antidote to sadness and hunger on a chilly day in Mexico or anywhere. Trust me.
First of all, you didn’t even let me buy the 12-count-box of Rib-b-cue sandwiches. Second, you eat like my grandmother. My late grandmother.
It sounds like one of your Uncle Gerald’s recipes.
Yeah, I think I’m going to have to draw a line in the sand here, and stand in solidarity with Jillian on this one. The best food in the whole, wide world? Lentil slop. It could be just about anything, but boiled lentils constitute the primary ingrediant. I like my lentils stewed with chicken broth, onions, a splash of sherry, some parsley and garlic. Throw that over some rice, and it’s magic.
Stand your ground, honey. Don’t let the man get you down.