Thursday, September 4, 2014

Tasty Thursday: Baby Eggplant with Sprouted Red Lentils

This eggplant and lentil dish is what resulted from me not being able to resist a pint of gorgeous little organic baby eggplants and a failed experiment with sprouting red lentils.

You see, I sprout green lentils every week.  We use them in everything from salads to hummus.  I decided this week to see what would happen if I used red instead.  What I learned is that although they will sprout, the beans are so delicate that when you rinse them, as I do every two hours while I am awake, the sprouts come off. So with the lentils not suitable for further sprouting and the sweet little baby eggplants needing to be used ASAP, I set out to make something yummy and while it might not be attractive in the photo we sure did enjoy eating it.

Ingredients:

Half a Vidalia onion, chopped
Pint of adorable organic baby eggplant, cubed with stems removed
Four cloves of gorgeous CSA garlic, chopped
One cup of red lentils, soaked overnight, then rinsed every two (waking) hours for a day and a half
Water
sea salt and ground pepper to taste
1/3 tsp turmeric

In your largest cast iron pan brown the onion.  When the kitchen smells heavenly and the onion is done, deglaze the pan with some water.  Lower flame, add eggplant and garlic, cover for five minutes to soften.  Make sure you've got enough water that it steams and doesn't burn.  Next, add lentils, salt, pepper, turmeric and more water if the pan has gone dry.  Give a good stir then cover and cook for a few minutes to allow lentils to come to the same temperature as the vegetables.  Enjoy!

Serve over bed of rice, if desired.  My spouse had it with thick slices of toasted sourdough bread topped with soy-free Earth Balance, I had it with some nutritional yeast on top.  It got two thumbs up from everyone who ate it.

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