LENTILS WITH SPINACH OVER RICE

Doctor Yum

INGREDIENTS

2 cups brown rice, cooked according to packaging (I actually prefer it on a sweet potato, not rice)

1 tablespoon coconut oil (substitute olive oil)

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic

½ tomato, diced (large)

1 teaspoon curry powder

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

¼ teaspoon chili powder (less for baby food option) (I didn't add)

1 cup lentils (red), rinsed with cold water (I only had brown)

2 cups baby spinach, coarsely chopped (finer chop for baby food) (I didn't add)

⅔ cup culinary coconut milk (not coconut milk beverage) (I didn't add, but I did add water)

½ teaspoon salt

dash black pepper

chicken 1/4-1/2t boullion

sweet potato

METHOD

I sauteed onions, then added lentils, tomatoes, turmeric, curry, 1/2c water, boullion, salt and pepper cooked for 10 mintutes.  I ate the lentil mixture on top of a sweet potato, it was so delicious!!!

Cook rice while preparing lentils. Heat oil in a medium saucepan. Cook onions until soft, about 3-4 minutes, add garlic and cook another 1-2 minutes. Add tomato and cook until soft, about 2 minutes. Add curry powder, turmeric and chili powder and mix. Add lentils and enough water to cover lentils by ½ inch. Cook for 5-8 minutes until lentils are soft. Add spinach and coconut milk and simmer another 1-2 minutes until spinach is wilted. Season with salt and pepper and add more to taste. Serve over brown rice.

BABYFOOD OPTION:

When I was a child, I spent many summers in my parents' native country of Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. I have watched my cousins and family friends feeding babies and noticed that people generally do not buy baby food in Sri Lanka. Instead, babies are offered an array foods like nutritious meat and vegetable curries, spiced mildly, with rice (which is usually started at about one year of life). One common early finger food is rice mixed with lentils or other meats and vegetables and shaped into small sticky balls. These little rice balls can be easily fed to babies by hand or given to babies to feed themselves. (see picture and recipe below for “Rice Balls with Lentils”). Take about a cup of cooked brown rice. Add a teaspoon of the lentil spinach mixture and mix with your hand. Add more lentils by the teaspoon and keep mashing until you can form the mixture into ¾ inch balls. This can make a great school lunch for slightly older kids, too!