>>784 I think that French lentils are best. They retain shape when cooked, and have a pleasant peppery, earthy flavor. When pandemic was starting, everyone was going for rice and pasta, but lentils were almost untouched, despite keeping just as well and being far more nutritious. I stacked up on them and have been slowly making my way through the excess. Usually I cook up a batch and eat them over few days. When cooking I add mirepoix, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, salt, and pepper. If I happen to have some homemade stock or bouillon cube I add it too. My go to uses are: >Bowl of lentils topped with herbs or fresh green vegetables >As a side for meat instead of starches like potatoes or rice >To thicken and enrich stews, good to add protein and more flavor to a "vegan chilli" for example >Cold in salads >Cooked until they turn into a creamy soup My go to recipe is a lentil salad. All you need are pre-cooked lentils, carrots, celery, onion, mustard, olive oil, and lemon. All of these ingredients keep well and most people have them on hand. I use one cup of vegetables per two cups of lentils. Fresh herbs are very good to top the salad; parsley or chives work best in my opinion, but scallions work well too. For fat, goat cheese is my favorite here, but fresh mozzarella, avocado, or even an extra potion of olive oil will work well too. Recipe is simple: >Dice carrots, celery, onion. You can saute them a bit, but that's optional. >Mix vegetables in a bowl with precooked lentils. >Mix in a table spoon of mustard and a tablespoon of olive oil >Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste, mix it >Add portion of herbs and fat of your choice, mix it >Top with remaining herbs and serve As most salads, this can be easily customized. It's pretty easy to come up with your own versions.

>>784 Roast some cut down carrots, put the lentils in, with water, you may add add some laurel leafs, let it cook at some decent heat. While waiting roast some onion in a pan, add some flour when then onions are already dark, wait till the flour is golden or brown and add this to the lentils. Of course stir it from time to time so it wont glue on the ground, scratch a bit around there. Put some salt and black pepper in, maybe a bit Muscat powder. You may experiment with some additional spices, a bit chilly is also nice. Also add some sausages (e.g. German hotdog like "Saitenwürste"), maybe cut them in a little, let it boil on low heat for a while. The sausages need to exchange some flavor with the rest but don't really need to be cooked so add them rather late. Tomato sauce makes it a bit fruity, that's the more Italian than (South)-German variant, in that case you don't need the rosted flour above, and it may fit better without the sausages. I sometimes also added other vegetables, especially green or red pepper. Also need some pasta. For the fully German variant it would be pasta with eggs and rather mushy instead al dente. But works with other pasta as well. Mix it on the plate and add some vinegar (also for better digestion). You can of course also cook it with some meat that may be smoked or already cooked, amd it needs to gets soft when cooked so you won't end up with the something like rubber. Or replace the pasta with potatoes.

Oh hey /ck/ >Made some baked chicken thighs and onions with rice made from the liquid. It's not perfect but I thought of you >OH HEY ITS ROYAL RUMBLE Starts in an hour Smug/wooo/18702

When I cook lentils I make them into lentil and rice stew. Mince a large onion or a few bundles of green onions, and several jalapeno peppers, a red bell pepper, and an entire bulb of garlic. Saute them in butter, coconut oil, bacon grease, or whatever is available to you. I sometimes add half a pound or a pound of sliced deli ham, minced, or about a pound of lean ground beef, chicken, et cetera, but this is optional. Saute it all until the onions begin to caramelize. You can get the meat to begin to brown a bit too, but cooking all the meat all the way through isn't necessary at this stage. Deglaze the pan and get everything into a large kettle with a gallon of water. Bring the water and onion mixture to a boil. At this point additional seasonings would be good. A tablespoon each of salt and pepper, and a bay leaf, are a good start, but this is very personal. Just keep in mind that it's a big batch and a lot of stuff to season. If you like bouillon cubes then we're talking about anywhere from ten to twenty, for example, for this much liquid, depending on your preferences. Get it all boiling. While you're waiting for it to boil, pour in a can of mixed vegetables, to give it a bit more color and texture. When it's all boiling, add one pound of washed lentils and one pound of brown rice. Bring it all back to a boil. Keep stirring it. The lentils in particular are prone to going to the bottom in a dense sticky mass that won't cook properly if you don't keep them moving. When it is all back at a rolling boil and the lentils are circulating and not in a glob at the bottom of the pan, I like to add one of those small cans of tomato paste. Break it up and mix it in with a wire whisk, don't just plop it in there. Get it mixed more or less uniform. Now put a cover on that kettle and put it in the oven at about 275 F. Or 135 Celsius, if you prefer. Let it all simmer for a few hours. It will lose a fair amount of water and the liquid level will drop, but that's okay. Stir it before serving with oyster crackers. The leftovers freeze beautifully. I know this isn't /fit/ but lentils + rice gives you all the needed amino acids for animal metabolism. It'll also be fairly high in fiber, vitamins, and iron.

>>823 Thanks! Glad to see some info on /ck/ about this. Any advice for someone in poverty who has access to little else but a microwave, a big cup, and water? I can get a small variety of food supplies at a drugstore like a Walgreen's, but little else.