Help needed to overcome fear of lentils and pulses....

[Sonnet]

Ladies...your help please....
Don't know what to do with the aforementioned things....would LOVE someone to remove that fear and furnish me with receipes for a lentil friendly life...
Any takers?...

my old standby is a lentil/couscous salad.

i basically saute red onion, chopped black olives and chopped tomatoes in olive oil w/salt, pepper adn minced garlic.

add in a tin of green lentils and heat through.

make couscous w/veggie broth cube.

add to the hodgepodge.

serve w/grated parm cheese.

mmmmm.

i had bbq lamb yest wiht a white bean puree
delish
you dry upt he beans in olove oil
garli hersb and then boil in sotme stock fro a few miens
then blast wiuth whizzer

supose it was a biut like this

WE HAD PEPPER BEAN Salad at the weekend.
kidney beans, chickpeas, black eyed beans, chopped radishes, and half a red and half a green pepper chopped. The dressing was olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, couple cloves garlic and half tsp of tabasco. It was very nice - all the kids ate it too. I've just been cleaning up kidney beans from dt2's nappy!

dhal, houmous, chickpea & spinach curry, lentil burgers (use the green or brown ones), tuna & white bean salad?

actually you can substitute mixed lentils for mince in most recipes - tacos, shep pies, lasagne, spag bol.

Refried beans?

When the weather is cold (ie not now) I love to make lentil and carrot soup.

Just cook red lentils as it says on packet. Fry onion in bit of oil, add carrots and sometimes potatoes and lots of stock (oxo cube in my case). Boil until it is all soft, add the lentils at some point during the proceedings and then liquidise.

If you're not a veggie you can add some bacon pieces when you are frying the onion to make it extra yummy.

Goodness.....I am scared and confused and that was before I reached Cods post!

Expatinscotlads - Can I just add "tinned" lentils to "things"? - do they not need cooking first?...Is it just dried lentils that I need to soak?? Recipe sounds lovely and just the sort of thing my lot would eat
Poisson: Could even decifer yours! and sounds delic too BUT have never seen "White Beans" - where would I find them? - told you I was a lentil& Bean virgin!

Kelly 1978: are all oyur ebans tinned? and do I literaly just add them to "things"?

Mercy - would love to cook Dharl, spinich and chickpea curry but how - do I soak etc, what type (colour) of lentils???

Kelly 1978: yeah - the substitution thing would be right up my street - again dry or tinned, to soak or not to soak??

Shazronnie: sounds yummy - will add that to my list of "must do" when confident with these things..

Thank you for your help so far. but more needed to remove this veil of mist that hangs over all things lentally or beany....

Dhansak
will try and find a good recipe

Sonnet, will get back to you later with details. White beans = cannelini beans as far as I know. Do you want vegetarian recipes or meat ones too?

Ingredients

1 oz split red lentils, picked over for little stones and washed in a sieve
3 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee
2 chicken breasts, skinned and cut into bite sized cubes
4 cloves
the seeds of 2 whole green cardamon pods - just cut the pods open with a knife and take out the seeds
for a hot curry 4-8 whole small dried chillies (Bird's Eye or Thai Hots) - omit if you want a medium curry
half teaspoon ground cumin seed
half teaspoon turmeric
half teaspoon ground coriander seed
half teaspoon hot chilli powder
1 teaspoon paprika
half a batch of Basic Curry Sauce - about 4 fl oz
salt to taste
(optional) 1 teaspoon methi (dried fenugreek) leaves, washed in a sieve then left moist for at least 10 minutes.
Method
Put the lentils into a pan with about 10 fl oz (half a pint) of cold water, bring to the boil and boil vigourously for 10 minutes. During this time skim off any scum that comes to the top. Then reduce the heat and cook with the water bubbling for a further 20 minutes. There should still be a little water left at the end so add a little more boiling water if the pan runs dry. Cover and set aside.
Grind the cloves and cardamon seeds as finely as you can in a pestle and mortar.
Heat a little of the oil in a large heavy frying pan then fry the chicken pieces over moderate heat until they are sealed and have turned white. Remove them from the pan and set aside.
Heat the rest of the oil in a heavy pan over a moderate heat.
Add the whole chillies (if using) and fry until they start to swell.
Turn the heat to low, add 1 tablespoon of the Basic Curry Sauce and stir round. Then add the ground cloves and cardamon seeds, cumin, turmeric, coriander, chilli powder and paprika and fry gently, stirring all the time, for a minute. Take care not to burn the spices or the curry will lack flavour and taste bitter.
Add the rest of the Basic Curry Sauce, the chicken pieces, the lentils and their remaining cooking liquid and some salt and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the chicken is done. Add a little hot water if the sauce starts to catch on the bottom of the pan but the idea is to finish up with a thick lentily sauce.
10 minutes from the end add the fenugreek leaves if using.
Simmer gently for the last 10 minutes stirring frequently as the sauce should now be nice and thick.

My DH is an ardent meat eater so I did a test about 4 months ago. I made a lasagne and replaced the mince with cooked brown lentils. I added beef stock to enhance the flavour plus lots of veggie like diced carrots, mushrooms and peas. DH ate all of it and to this day he still does not know that it was a meat free dish. I have no intention of ever telling him either. These days I use half mince and half brown lentils so at least I don't feel that I am being too deceptive!

white beans are liek canellini i suppose
look on the tin

Mercy - both please
Cremolafoam - sounds good, would like to try that..
speedamama - that is what I plan to do....

Right will be visiting the pulses and beans aisle tonight!!
Wish me luck

Sonnet, I always buy tins of beans but if you go for dried ones there should be instructions on the back.

Chickpea & Spinach Curry

1 tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 or 2 handfuls of fresh spinach (2/3 blocks if frozen)
½ tin of tomatoes
3-4 tablespoons of Patak's curry paste (NOT SAUCE)
Small finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic
Veg oil

Heat oil and add onion and crushed garlic, cook for a couple of minutes. Add tin of tomatoes and curry paste (turn heat down it may spit a little) crush down the tomatoes. Add chickpeas, about half a cup of hot water, add spinach and leave to simmer for 25 or so. It's best made a couple of hours in advance so the chickpeas absorb the flavour (I sometimes add mushrooms too btw). Can also be frozen.

There are dozens of dhal recipes, this one is very basic.

½ cup of red lentils
2 cups of water
1 small dried chilli
¼ teaspoon of turmeric and of ground cumin
Pinch of salt
½ small onion finely chopped
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
Garam Masala
Fresh coriander
Veg oil or ghee

Wash the lentils and place in pan with 2 cups of water. Add dried chilli, turmeric, cumin and salt. Cook on a lowish heat until slightly porridgey, but lentils still mostly retain their shape and water is absorbed. Fry onion, crushed garlic in a little olive oil and a generous pinch of garam masasla for a couple of minutes. Add a few coriander leaves. Mix it all into the lentils.

sonnet, I go for tinned. They are easier to use, no soaking overnight etc. You HAVE to soak if you are using dried. Plus they are very cheap anyway, normally on offer in sains. I use loads each week.
Black bean lasagne is very nice. We eat tons of indian food too, like vatidahl (chickpea bhajia things, can't think of English name!), rajma (kidney bean curry), kitchuri (rice and muung beans), muung dahl.

My kids love chickpea curry, and it cna be made in minutes, stick it in with some tomato paste, indian spices, garlic, ginger and dish up with chapatis.

Forgot to say, remove dried chilli when lentils are cooked (or you could only add it to the oil, onions etc to add flavour - then remove)

Other ideas include cassoulet (try Delia's poor man's version), falafel, chilli con/non carne, pasta & bean soup. HOw about pakoras - they are made with chickpea (gram) flour?

and bhajia with gram flour!
onions, aubergines, chillis, wafer thin potato slices

I am gettign v hungry!

red lentils, which don't need soaking, can be added a handful at a time to dishes like lasagne, sausage casserole and spag bol for a gradual lentilly 'acclimatisation' and added fibre. They only need to cook for around 12 mins to retain a little 'bite' and texture and v good for fooling reluctant kids and in my case, husbands...

wash the beans/letils etc first though. They are very dusty when dried & then usually stored in water/sugar salt conconction.

Good receipes there !

Lentil and apricot sauce

Cook 100g red lentils and 100g puy lentils in 900ml water for about 20 mins. Fry a chopped onion in olive oil with a couple of chopped garlic cloves, then add to the lentils. Also add 100g chopped dried apricots, 2 stock cubes, and 300ml V8 vegetable juice/tomato juice. Cook the sauce for another 15 minutes.

Serve over tagliatelle or any other pasta. Also suitable for older babies/toddlers if you use low salt stock. Can be blended if you prefer a smooth consistency.

Secondly, you can make chilli by cooking mince with chopped onions, carrots, garlic, plenty of ground cumin, paprika, a pinch of cayenne, passata and a tin of kidney beans. (We use vegetarian mince.) Serve with rice.

Another easy recipe is black eyed bean pie

Line a pie dish with a sheet of shortcrust pastry. Fry a chopped onion with 2 chopped carrots and plenty of chopped fresh rosemary. Spread the fried veg into the pie dish. Get 2 tins of black eyed beans, drain them and put in the pie dish on top of the veg. Put a tinful of chopped tomatoes on top of the beans, then splash 2 tablespoons of soy sauce on top of the tomatoes. Top with another sheet of pastry, brush top of pie with milk then cook until the pastry is golden brown (think it's about GM4 for 20 mins or so).

Glad to see that I'm not the only lentil Machivellian deceiver around