Green Lentil Yum Stew

A green lentil stew can be pretty boring unless … spices by the quantity are used. Half a teaspoon of this or that will not do. Heaping teaspoons or tablespoons, my friends! The other yum factor is quality of ingredients.

• • Organic – for every living being, water systems, and Mother Earth. Plus, they taste better than pesticide-laden, dead-soil grown anything.
  • Fresh grown or canned, frozen, or dried from the garden or balcony pots. Winter is when the labor of a season and of the Sept-Oct. home-processing pays off. Big yum; and free!
  • The photo might not give much of an impression.  This is a very delicious lentil stew. It is a whole meal in one bowl with carbs (hominy), protein (lentils and garbanzos), and vegetables (everything else).
  • Plus, a soup or stew like this is perfect for using up left over bits of this and that.

Ingredients; use a small soup pot (1 gal.)

• butter, or your favorite oil for sauteeing.
• 1 medium onion
• 4 cloves of garlic or 1.5 T. garlic powder
• 1 qt. onion broth* or vegetable broth
• 1 C of home canned* or store bought tomato sauce
• 1/2 a large sweet potato uncooked (a left over)
• 1/2 C of hominy (pozole)
• 1/2 C of green lentils
• 1/2 C of garbanzos or light colored bean (a left over)
• 1/2 C loosely chopped fresh parsley with the stems
• 1 good quality vegetable bouillon cube
  • Spices: < 1/2 t. salt, at least 1/4 t. black pepper (fresh ground makes a difference!), heaping teaspoon of coriander and of paprika,
  • plus 1 T of Herbs de Provence

Method

• Loosely chop the onion; peel, smash, and loosely chop the garlic; and cube the sweet potato into small pieces.
• Saute in a tablespoon of butter for a few minutes.
• Pour in the onion or veggie broth, tomato sauce, hominy, garbanzos, and washed green lentils. Stir.
• Loosely chop the parsley with stems; throw it along with the remaining ingredients.
• Cover, bring to a low boil, then reduce heat to low simmer for 45 minutes.
• Stir occasionally so that the bottom does not burn.
• Voila!

* My onion broth is from the stems of Egyptian Walking Onions. They are perennial. I harvest in early July, make broth with the stems, and freeze for soups and stews.

* If you have never canned Purple Cherokee Tomatoes, it’s time to take the plunge! I have found that no tomato, plum or otherwise, is sweeter or thicker when canned. They are also one of the easiest to grow. They start providing early and bear fruit until hard frost. They are sweet straight from the vine in salads or for fresh salsa, and make an amazing canned salsa.

As a rule, I roast tomatoes for canning and making salsa. Roasting definitely brings out the layers of flavor of any tomato to be put up (canned).

Purple Cherokee is the tomato on the upper left.