Hella Stella

By popular demand, the lentil recipe I was raving about. It's from the lovely Orangette, and she goes into lots of detail on her post.

By the way, this dish looks like hell. Seriously... It's not a pretty bowl of lentils. It looks like slop. Obviously the taste is amazing, but if you have a picky partner or family, take Orangette's advice and gussy your plate up with a nice green salad on the side.

Some tweaks:

I know that the proper way to carmelize onions is to let them cook a long long time until they are brown and sweet. HOWEVER. Allow me to propose a cheat, if you will, that could save you some time and not sacrifice any flavour. Instead of cooking the onions for a million years, I cook them until they are very soft, maybe twenty minutes, and then I sprinkle a small amount of sugar on them. For my giant cast iron pan full of onions, I used about half a teaspoon of sugar (and the sugar I used was that light brown organic stuff, because that's what I had). Then I turn up the heat a bit and watch the onions carmelize at super speed. Keep stirring to make sure the sugar doesn't burn. It's a great trick, and the onions taste like heaven when they are all perfectly browned.

Another tweak.... I adore short grain brown rice, and that's what I used instead of basmati. Be warned if you go this route: you will need about four times the water, and it will take well over an hour for everything to soak up. If that seems too long for you, go with basmati and you'll have a delicious dish in no time. If you are a brown rice addict like me, it's worth the extra time.

I have a freezer full of super ripe bananas. I've got a few basic recipes for banana bread, but does anyone have a favourite banana recipe they want to share with me? Muffins, breads, cakes; I'm easy. My tummy will thank you.

Operation Spring Cleaning did not go entirely as planned. Oh sure, I got some furniture moved around and did some general tidying, but my BH was busy with school so I had to call in help to do the heavy lifting. Another upside to having such nice neighbours - when you have a rickety bookshelf you need to chuck down a set of basement stairs, just pick up the ol' phone and make a veiled threat. I mean, call in a favour.

I got a membership at Costco last week, which is funny, because as of tomorrow our borrowed car will be heading back to the in-laws (it doesn't actually start anymore, which defeats the purpose of having a car, as you can guess). So I'll be going to Costco to get the one or two things I would actually buy there, and I'll have no way of getting the stuff home. HAHA. Smart thinking, Stella.

Anyways, I'm telling you all this because I find it funny that Costco lets you make a face for your membership card picture. Mine looks like I just ate a lemon. It is 100% awesome. I showed it to the lady at the photo centre and she pretended to be impressed.

I'm thankful that people humour me. Otherwise I'd just be showing all this stuff to my dog, who would probably just rub his ass on my arm and walk away.