Spiced Lentils with Spinach and Apples and Indian Pulan

This is a delicious recipe (or, rather two recipes that I am combining so you can cook both at once a bit easier because they compliment each other so well) that is (are) time and chopping intensive but super fun! It took about an hour and a half from start to finish so if you have that amount of time and find cooking things relaxing (which is maybe why you are here?) you can make this and relax by the warm, spicy stove.

First you chop so many things into very small pieces! Like 2 cups of onion, 2 stalks of celery, 1 tbsp of ginger, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 lb fresh spinach, and 2 tart apples for the first dish (lentils) and 1 cup chopped onion, 1 tbsp of ginger, 3 carrots, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 bell pepper for the second (pulan). Also, put 2 cups rice on to cook (this is especially nice if you have a rice cooker. Get one, you can ignore it completely!).

...


30 min. pass and everything is chopped! Hooray! I promise you will be so happy you did this step all at once later.



Now, put 2 cups of dried lentils and 5 cups of water in a big saucepan, bring it to a boil and then simmer it for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, you wanna get two skillets out and put a tbsp of oil and a tbsp on butter in each (mine were the same size, but for you one can be a bit smaller because I will be referring to them as "big" and "small" - big is for pulan and small is for lentils, if you just wanna make one of the dishes). When everything is nice and hot and melted, put the 2 cups of onion in the smaller skillet and the 1 cup of onion in the larger along with the 1 tbsp ginger, 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp coriander (in the larger). Saute the onions in the smaller skillet for about 10 minutes, and the onions and spices in the larger for 5-8, adding a bit of water to the large skillet to avoid sticking.



Add the celery, 1 tsp cumin, 2 tbsp dry mustard, 1 tbsp ginger, 1 tsp coriander, and 1/2 tsp turmeric to the small skillet and let it cook for 10 minutes or until the celery is tender. Put the carrots and 2 cloves of garlic into the big skillet and let that cook for 5 minutes, then add the bell pepper, cover it, and let it cook for five minutes more.

While you are waiting, stick a tray in the oven with shredded coconut and almond slivers on it (a cup of each). Keep an eye on it! 10 minutes at 350 degrees is plenty.

Back to the skillets! Scrape the contents of the small skillet into the saucepan of lentils along with 3 tbsp lemon juice and 3 cloves of garlic. Still it all together and let it all simmer 10 more minutes. As for the larger skillet, add 1/2 cup raisins and the cooked rice. Turn the heat all the way down and cover until you finish up the lentils.

The larger skillet:

Back to the lentil saucepan! Add some salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste, along with the chopped spinach and apple bits. Let it cook just a few minutes longer until everything gets soft and nice. You can put your toasted coconut and almonds on the rice dish while this is going on.

Here's the lentils finishing up:

Now eat it all! Hooray! Robbie and Jessica and quite excited for dinner!



Also, Robbie made chocolate chip snicker-doodle cookies for dessert! What!? Bridget couldn't eat them fast enough, we needed to help her.



Here are more pictures of our dinnertime, courtesy of Bridget!



I am astounded by the dinner topics we cover! Palace intrigue!



Eve is pretty!



Eve has found something of Utmost Importance in the paper!



Robbie is pensive.



Bridget is also pretty!

The End!

Brazilian Stuffed Peppers and watching Dexter

Brazilian Stuffed Peppers are what I made for dinner tonight and they were full of delicious flavor and weird combinations. They are from my favorite cookbook of our house, Eve's copy of The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen. I recommend it Highly.

Let me warn you a little - the ingredients in this recipe were a little weird. But the combination ended up being pretty cool and unique and yummy - the biggest thing I would change is adding some spices (the recipe doesn't call for any). So go ahead and experiment if you wanna try it!

I started the evening with two pots of boiling water - a little one to hard-boil the 4 eggs that were later minced and added to the stuffing and a big one to put the peppers in once I cut off their little heads and took out the seedy inside bits. I picked red ones cause they were on sale, but I bet they would be way prettier with different colors. Just make sure they can stand on their own or it's hard to move them around when it's oven-time.


They bobbed around in there for a minute or two and then I had to take them out and rinse them in cold water so they didn't get too soft, but were still soft enough to cut and eat without messy troubles.


Next I minced an onion and sauted it in a skillet with a little salt and some olive oil for about 2 minutes. While the onions were getting soft and delicious-smelling, I minced a can of olives too and added them. The recipe called for some Cream of Wheat (1/2 cup) and water (1/4 cup), but that was too weird for me and I didn't think anyone would eat the rest of the Cream of Wheat so I used some leftover quinoa that we had hanging out in the fridge instead. Word on the street is that it is a Super Grain.



After another minute, I took it off the heat and added 1/2 of yummy raisins, the chopped up hard-boiled eggs and some black pepper, and then some parsley we happened to have because there was no green in the mix. One thing I would do next time is use currents instead of raisins or maybe heat the raisins with a little water or wine so they are less wrinkly and more plump and warm. Actually, adding red wine to the whole mixture sounds like a really awesome plan that I whole-heartedly endorse. Not too much though, or it'll be too wet.

Anyway, I had preheated the oven to 350 degrees and I opened a large can of diced tomatoes and spread them over the bottom of the baking dish. I was low on funds though. You should use fresh tomatoes cause the canned ones were kind of icky. (This dish was a learning experience, can you tell? I make the mistakes so you don't have to!) Then, I filled each little pepper, stood it in the baking dish, put its little hat back on, and baked the for 30 min, covered loosely in foil.



They were a pretty good success!

Sometimes, I am a girl who chooses not to read and watch TV instead. Right now is one of those times and I will be watching Dexter for the remainder on this evening. Since that is my plan, I decided I should mention how much I enjoy Dexter and how good the producers are at making me conscious that I am rooting for a serial killer who enjoys the feeling of murdering others and has no feelings for others. I like it when things make me feel uncomfortable; it is something that I do for fun. Maybe you do too? If so, watch Dexter!

Scones and Joey Comeau

Today was a day of productivity! It was 5:00 when I discovered I had done everything I need to do this evening (except make a flyer for Muggle Quidditch, but that's okay). "Let's make some scones!" suggested one of my multiple personalities. It was a date.

Note: I doubled this recipe to feed Beauty Palace's (this is the name of our house) dinner guests for Valentine's Day. It made 16 scones.

First I mixed 3 1/2 cups of flour with 6 tablespoons sugar, 5 teaspoons of baking power and 1 teaspoon of salt. Then I cut 2/3 of a cup of butter into the dry stuff with knives til it all got beautiful and crumbly and delicious.



Next I beat 2 eggs and added them with a teaspoon of vanilla and 1 cup chocolate chips. The last ingredient Betty Crocker wanted me to use was 8-12 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream. Well, I just bought a bunch of whipping cream last week to try to make mousse for Christine's birthday and that totally didn't work texturally. So we had a bunch of slightly whipped cream with sugar and egg whites mixed in in the fridge already. This was part of the choice for scones because, as much as we like yummy things, even Beauty Palace will not snack on a huge bowl of whipped cream. So I put that in there instead.


Then I ignored Betty again and baked the scones and 375 degrees not 400, for 14 minutes. And I made them heart-shaped, for Valentine's Day! I did this with my hands and it was great fun!






As they baked, I whipped the failed mousse more properly and also made it pink because I am excessively cheery about holidays and things.




My non-conventional whipping cream worked in both parts of the process! (I did not allow Robbie to eat this scone yet, so if he looks slightly resentful that is why)




Delicious! I love pictures of scones!

As for reading, I recently read a short story by Joey Comeau of internet (particularly a softer world) fame. It's called "The girl who couldn't come" and it about what you think it is about. It is very sweet and sexy and you will LOVE IT. I love pretty much everything I read by Mista Joey Comeau, not only because of his dark humor, but also his obviously natural, yet subtle, bullying ability to make everyone feel highly uncomfortable at unexpected moments. A true talent indeed!

See also "One bloody thing after another"

Pierogies and Tennyson

Hello friendly readers! My name is Emily and I love to cook and also to read because I am an English major with a beautiful kitchen. I did not know I loved to cook until getting a beautiful kitchen, but now that I do, I am way enthusiastic about it! I make dinner once a week for my roommates, so you, as a faithful reader, can probably count on weekly updates (plus extra ones if I bake something fun, which I tend to do).

A little about me! I live in San Jose with 5 wonderful roommates and friends named Jessica, Bridget, Eve, Christine, and Robbie. I would show you all a picture of them, but there is not a picture of us all together! It is All Wrong and hopefully we will fix this Horrible Situation during our Valentine's Day Dinner Party in Monday night. Man, I hope! Anyway, we are all very happy and enjoy eating so much. So much. My favorite thing to eat is cake and so this is also my favorite thing to bake. Also these Godiva chocolates that my mom sent me for Valentine's Day that are sitting right here by my laptop. Just in case, you know, you wanted to buy my a present, being the faithful reader you are. I dunno. Maybe.

I go to SJSU and I play the accordion (or I just recently started) and I like to bicycle as well and also I am maybe starting a Muggle Quidditch team at school and I tutor 2nd grade. There, I think that is everything that is cool about me.

Anyway, to the food!

Tonight, I made pierogies! I grew up in Cleveland and pierogis are are big there in general and with my distantly Slavic ancestors specifically. Basically, they are a filling of potatoes, cheddar cheese, and sauteed onions all mashed together and wrapped in dough that is then boiled for a few minutes and fried. The extra beautiful part is that you can do everything but frying and then refrigerate them to fry later. They'll be ready within minutes! Yes, minutes!

This is the yummy filling! It consists of two mashed potatoes, half of a chopped onion, and 8oz. cheddar cheese. (Apparently you can make dessert pierogies with prunes, but I cannot attest to their awesomeness cause that is too icky for me. Maybe dates. I dunno, haven't tried).

These are the pierogies with a little filling in each one and the edges of the dough carefully sealed. That way when I boil them, they

don't get make the water all murky and awful with filling (they do a little bit anyhow, but if you aren't careful, it'll be way gross and you will also be feeding people empty dough shells that have been fried). In case you are interested, the dough is 2 1/2 cup flour, a dash of salt, 1/2 cup of sour cream, and 1/4 cup butter. Add a little water too if it's too dry because closing them tightly is very very important.

Next, I boiled them for a few minutes (they float to the top when they're ready to get out). I was really tired by then because the process takes a little bit (1 hour and a half-ish). So I went and watched excessive TLC with my dear roommate Jessica and went to bed. Then, tonight, I fried them with more onions and everyone enjoyed! (This made like 35 smallish pierogies.)

I don't think I will post extensively about what I am reading every time because I am often reading the same old classics again and again as an English major and it is maybe not so interesting. But hopefully this blog will get me to make time for the extra reading that I usually don't have time for so that I sound more interesting and well-rounded.

This week in Victorian Literature we read Tennyson's poem "Ulysses". I know, way original, right? I think I will write a response to the poem from Penelope's point of view later this week and then put that up here cause that might be fun and promising you will encourage me to actually do it.

Okay that's all! Goodbye new friends!