I'm not much for lentils, or salads (especially in winter!). What I know, however, is that it's good to have more plant based foods in one's diet, and legumes are meant to be really good for you, for many reasons. So, last week I was pondering my favourite pasta salad and thinking about how to have that salad yumminess (now there's an oxymoron!) without the pasta.
Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, so I set about to include some necessary healthful foods into my weekday lunches in a palatable manner.
I love Bobby Flay's Greek Orzo Salad, and use his recipe all the time, without the prawns. I think what I love most is the dill! So with this as the basis, I switched out the pasta and use French Puy lentils and pearl couscous instead. I cooked 1/4 cup of each and mixed them together. Then I quartered some cherry Roma tomatoes and a small Lebanese cucumber and added that, imprecise measuring and all, until it looked like a good ratio to the lentils and couscous. I added just one spring onion and a handful of chopped dill, and omitted the feta.
The recipe made enough for 3 lunches. This salad made the Thursday grade. Thursday is tuck shop day at our school, and sad lunches just do not stack up in a staffroom of sushi and filled fresh baguettes. Amongst those delicious tuck shop offerings, my salad still felt like a great lunch. The texture that I don't love, with the lentils, was softened with the pearl couscous. I'll keep using that combo and over time may I'll back off the couscous bit by bit until I am content with just the lentils.
Now I need to make this again, so that the leftovers from Miss Sunshine's party don't call my name too loudly!
1 comment:
I don't love the texture of lentils, either, but I like the idea of equalizing it with couscous. The Man has gone vegetarian on me, so I'm doing a lot more meat-free cooking and looking for new and interesting ways to cook grains. It's a bit of a pain, but now I'm eating less meat as well, which I guess is a good thing.
xofrances
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