Do be a dahl...

Hello good and faithful readers!
Despite my lack of posting for FIVE DAYS, I truly appreciate you showing up and reading.

Here's the thing... I'm at San Jose Airport flying to Phoenix this morning (woo hoo!) and my camera - and SD card with the pictures for this post- are in the apartment. Boo. If you were keeping track, that's plus one point for an amaze-balls recipe and minus one point for going to bed too late before getting up to fly.

(The X Files episode we watched was a dud - a second episode was totally necessary to remedy the situation. Midnight 'smidnight! I can sleep on the plane! wait.... I'm flying a crap airline and I refuse to pay $6 to select an aisle seat... never mind. Coffee it is.)

So. Without further ado and without actual pictures... Here it is!

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Indian food makes me swoon. Love. Love. Love. the stuff... can't, however, afford to spend the dollars on the dahl, right now so I made my own! Super easy, super cheap "set it and forget it!" meal. We stuck to brown rice as my bread making skills are currently restricted to my bread maker, but you can buy whole wheat naan for dipping at Trader Joes on the cheap!

Green Lentil Dahl
based on this recipe

Shopping List:

2 cups green lentils
1 bay leaf
3 garlic cloves
3 pieces raw ginger, peeled (about 1" each. Keep your ginger in the freezer and use as needed. peels and grates beautifully and it won't go bad!)
1 teaspoon tumeric
5 thin slices of lemon
1/2 tsp salt
5 grinds black pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne (I'm a pansy and started with 1/8 tsp. Rule of thumb: you can always add but a seared tongue takes forever to heal.)
1/2 tsp garam masala
3 T butter or ghee
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp cumin
2 c cooked brown rice (again... rice cooker: set 'er up and move on with your life. luv.)

To Do List

Wash lentils & drain. Combine with 6 cups water, garlic cloves, ginger slices & turmeric. Bring to a boil, lower heat & simmer for 40 minutes, until your lentils are tender and the water had reduced by about 1/3. I go for sludgy texture with Dahl... you can always go for a more 'defined' lentil if that's your bowl of beans.

Add lemon, salt, black pepper, cayenne and garam masala. Simmer for a further 5-10 minutes. (again... i love dahl sludge, so I cooked mine for good 10 min longer) Melt butter in a separate pan, add garlic and cumin, and let 'er go until your butter is nearly browned. (If you're using ghee, just heat until warm.) Pour over top of dahl & serve over brown rice!

A few quick nutrition notes:

1. Remember the balanced macro nutrients we talked about? This has 'em. Your legumes and brown rice together make up a nice complete protein with all those yummy, essential amino acids. Yay!

2. Don't fear butter. The small amount of fat this adds to each serving will help with satiety... just don't use that logic with your movie popcorn and we're good.

3. Adding a veggie (which we admittedly didn't do here...) gives you a really well balanced meal! Steam some cauliflower in 1/2" water in a sautee pan and toss in a 1/2 tsp of good curry powder. Cruciferous, cancer-fighting curry bliss.

(photo source)