Taking on the V-Con Pt. 12

As many of you know three lovely ladies and myself decided to challenge our selves by cooking our way through the Veganomicon, our own Vegan version of Julie and Julia, if you will. It was great fun, but unfortunately didn't last as long as I had hoped. I haven't even looked at the Veganomicon since our last recipe, almost a year ago. Lately I haven't had the expendable income to purchase groceries needed to fulfil new recipes and have been making standards and creating new things from what I have in the house. I have had an enormous amount of lentils in the house due to my love of lentil soup but as the temperature increases my love of soup diminishes (only a little, really) thus I found myself staring at a pound of red lentils and not a single clue on how to consume then. I then remembered the fabulous Snobby Joe's recipe we did last year with red lentils and decided to see if there were anymore creative and delicious recipes with lentils as a main ingredient.

I had only to turn to page 177 and find my favorite meal of all time Lentil Fetoosh, or as called in the Veganomicon "Lentils and rice with caramelized onions and spiced pita crisps" whew, that is a mouthful...of awesomeness! There is a restaurant Timmy and I frequent called Pita Jungle and we tend to order only one thing, the lentil fetoosh salad. Firstly because fetoosh is so much fun to say and secondly because it is the best fucking salad I have put into my mouth. The recipe in the Veganomicon is not spot on but it was close enough for me!


Ingredients:
3 large yellow onions (I used 1 1/2, because three seems like way too much)
3/4 cup olive oil (i drizzled mine on, maybe used 1/3 cup)
1 cup long-grain basmati rice
1 cup red lentils
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees

and start slicing your onions into thin rings.

Spread onions our on a deep baking dish and coat with olive oil. Roast in pan and stir often, I checked mine every five minutes. While the onions are roasting bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add rice cinnamon stick, all spice and cumin. Lower heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, then add lentils. Gently stir in lentils to incorporate and bring to a boil. Once boiling lower the temperature and cook for about 45 minutes.

Gently fluff the lentils and rice when finished then fold in caramelized onions. You can eat the lentils and rice as so, or do what we did, put it over a bed of lettuce and have yourself a plate of lentil fetoosh. We made a lemon dressing similar to the one at Pita Jungle and drizzled that on top of our salad.


along with the salad we enjoyed a marinated bean salad as well. Yummy!

Chickpea burgers

There is this super sweet and funny woman Marcy that shops at my Trader Joe's and over the last four years of working there Marcy and I have become friends. We email, share our pet stories and even poke fun at out crazy up tight neighbors. Marcy is so fun to speak with that often I find myself not working while at work but just chit chatting. Recently Marcy has gotten into the habit of bringing old magazines to my store for the employees to read on our lunch breaks. The magazines vary from Ode, O Magazine and Healthy Living to some I have never seen or hear before like Mother Earth News and Experience Life. Some of these magazines are absolutely uplifting and are great to read on a lunch break giving a fresh perspective to the rest of the work day. For me, one of the perks of these magazines is the recipes, though not all Vegan a lot are very easy to alter and make Vegan friendly. Experience Life just had a recipe for Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers and I made them last night for dinner, they were FANTASTIC! The best part, Timmy and I figured you could really replace the garbanzo beans with any bean and make all kinds of delicious and healthy veggie burgers. I followed the recipe as is, but next time I am going to use black beans with corn, jalapenos and tomatoes for a spicy South Western burger. Yum!

Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers


served along side with lightly friend and seasoned cauliflower

2 cups cooked garbanzo beans
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. garlic
1 tsp. fresh ginger
3 T. olive oil
2 T. lemon juice
2 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
3 T. diced red bell peppers
1/4 cup fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine garbanzo beans through lemon juice in a food processor. Process until smooth. Transfer mixture to a bowl and add rice, bell peppers and parsley. Mix with your hands then shape into burgers. Place on baking sheet and bake 25 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.


Enjoy!