I didn't even think about this post until dinner was already consumed, cleared, and cleaned up. Unfortunately, no photos to accompany as the dinner is in my tummy, but I did include links to the recipes I loosely used, and those sites have lovely photos.
I had remembered about my love for lentil spouts about a week ago and started some. They are quite simple and quick to grow. I add about 1 cup of french lentils (rinsed and sorted) to a 1 qt wide mouth jar and fill the jar with water. After about 12 hours, the lentils have absorbed a lot of the water and have increased to about 3 cups in the jar. Drain and rinse, cover loosely with a cap, a towel, or a piece of cheese cloth. Continue to rinse and drain every 12 hours, and after about 48 hours altogether, you should see little tails emerging from your lentils! You may eat them at any stage, but I generally give them one final rinse, and cap the jar and refrigerate. I have been adding them to sandwiches, namely my new favorite of fried egg and provolone with a friend's homemade cherry tomato relish, lettuce and lentil sprouts on a whole wheat tortilla wrap. I have enjoyed two of those this week. For additional information about sprouting, the SproutPeople.org site has a lot of useful information, but I buy my lentils from the bulk bins at my grocery store.
Last night, the lentil sprouts went into a delicious Lentil and Tomato salad from BBC Good Food but I didn't follow their instructions to a T, I used sprouted lentils instead of cooked lentils, I didn't have mango chutney so I used Apricot Jam, I didn't have spinach, so I left that out altogether, and I had shallots I had grown, so I used those instead of the onions. I really enjoyed the cuminy dressing.
The main dish of our dinner was Zucchini Pancakes, similar to this recipe from Ina Garten. I had noticed a zucchini lurking beneath the powdery mildewed leaves of the zucchini plants, and went to collect that one, and unexpectedly found four! One was baseball bat size, so that will become shreds for the freezer to breads & muffins, and be added to soups. We are definitely fans for savory vegetable pancakes, potato being our favorite. I did use whole wheat pastry flour instead of the All Purpose flour that as called for, and I am positive I added way more than two tablespoons of grated onion. The kiddo enjoyed these so much she had seconds! Zucchinis are definitely growing on her, thankfully.
Lastly, we like to enjoy applesauce with our savory vegetable pancakes, and as you may recall, I made some cinnamon pear sauce last week, and as always with the canning process, I am left with a remainder that doesn't quite fill a jar to be canned for the pantry, so it ends up in the fridge to be consumed right away. It was a tasty condiment for sure.
Altogether, our dinner of Zucchini Pancakes, Lentil and Tomato Salad, and Pear Sauce, required only one ingredient from the grocery store, Cilantro, because in my completely cattywampus life lately, I forgot to reseed and stagger my cilantro plantings.
Pantry/Fridge
Lentils, Apricot Jam, Lemons and Limes, onion, cinnamon pear sauce (via garden), Shallots and garlic (via garden), spices (cumin, salt and pepper), vinegar and oil, whole wheat pastry flour
Garden
Zucchini, tomatoes, eggs
One random other thing today: I was able to repair, once again, a zippered hooded cardigan that I must have purchased sometime in the mid to late 90's at Forever 21, to go on my first date with a boy whom my friends, at the time, referred to as Mr. Pisser (because he proceeded to use the restroom no less than 8 times during that date.) He didn't last very long, as he was not very interesting to me. Apparently the sweater is hanging in there nearly 20 years later (!) and it is still one of my favorites. A little run appeared on the hood, and I was able to re-knit that section with the help of a crochet hook and secure the last loop to the seam. This can be a problem with sweaters that are sewn from machine knit fabric instead of assembled from purposefully knit pieces.
No comments:
Post a Comment