Blanket goes Indian, hasn't gone back.

Last week, I had the cooking equivalent of writer's block.

I definitely wanted to cook something.  Maybe even for other people.  But no recipes looked good, and all I really accomplished that afternoon was whining incessantly to my roommate about my inability to pick a recipe.

I needed to get out of my rut.  Do something unexpected.  Something exotic.

So I picked the easiest Indian recipe I could find, and you better believe I made that.

Red Lentil Curry

Ingredients

• 2 cups red lentils
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons curry paste
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon ginger root, minced
• 1 (14.25 ounce) can tomato puree

I followed this recipe fairly loyally, with my usual detours--powdered ginger instead of ginger root, garlic powder instead of minced, you know the drill.

First, I put an entire bag of brown rice on to boil (just follow the directions on the bag.)  Then I got down to business.

Aww boy you know I used lentils.

I couldn't actually find red lentils.  I'm not even sure they are a thing.  They probably are, and I'm just dumb.  So I used green ones.  Rinse them off, put them in a pot of water (the amount of water is kind of iffy, I filled the pot about an inch higher then the lentils and added more later), and leave them to simmer on the stove until tender.  Mine took about 45 minutes.

Chop up your onion and caramelize it in the oil.

Caramelizing is an exercise in patience.

I'm lucky my roommate was around to keep me from ruining the recipe.  Our dialogue went something like this:

Me: Are these caramelized yet?

Becky:  Do they look caramelized?

Me:  No.

Becky:  Then no.*

*Repeat as needed.

While you are waiting for the world's slowest onions to undergo the world's slowest chemical change, make the fancy spice mixture.

My dedication to the art of photography=
Inspiring!!!

I bought all kinds of new spices for this recipe.  They all smelled cool and foreign.  Combine all the spices and the sugar in a bowl and set it aside until the onions are done.

Looks like vomit, smells like heaven!

When the onions are caramelized, add the spice mixture and cook over high heat for a minute or two, stirring constantly.  Pour in the tomato puree and reduce the heat to a simmer.

My splurge of the day was some whole-wheat naan bread.  I brushed it wish some olive oil and heated it up in the oven.  I had never eaten naan before, but god knows I love bread.  It was really nice and chewy.

Everybody eats carbs in the same language.

When the lentils are done, drain the water and mix in the tomato-onion-curry stuff.

Steamy!

I have no idea how you are supposed to serve this, so I served it over the brown rice with naan on the side.  It tasted delicious.

Yeah, yeah, you're a model, eat your food.

I love this recipe for several reasons.

1. It tastes delicious and different.

2. At 89 cents for a bag of lentils, it is extremely economical.

3. It made so much food that I have eaten it every single day since I made it over a week ago.

4. It's super healthy.

Blogger has this cool feature that lets me see what countries are reading my blog.  Most are America, a few are from my friends studying abroad in Italy (HI GUYS!), but a few are from strange, cool places like Slovenia.  The point I'm trying to make is that I have a handful from India.  So, to my Indian readers or Indian enthusiasts in America, how did I do?  Passable?

Not to brag, but passable is how I roll.