Welcome to the Promised Land

So round these parts I’m known for my love of pie. Like here and here and here.

But on Monday night I ventured into new territory, so far ruled by the shepherds in the U.K….the land of Shepherd’s Pie.

Let me tell you about this land. It is delicious and cozy. It has little valleys made of mashed potatoes (with goat cheese!) over a sea of lentils and mushrooms, carrots and shallots and peas (with a splash of red wine, of course) and is quite the delicious February dinner. Also, it’s vegetarian, so all of my veggie friends out there will hopefully appreciate what I concocted. But it’s the kind of veggie dish that meat-loving friends would also appreciate. I like bridging the gap between these two worlds.

Mushroom and Lentil Shepherd’s Pie is like the promised land of food dishes (shared by only Thanksgiving Dinner and a few other select winners). Is that going too far?  I don't think so.  It's where you can eat dinner, linger over a glass of wine, catch up with your friends, and even enjoy a Monday night (of all nights! I hate Mondays!) and come out of it whistling a happy tune with a pledge to return, and soon.

If you can't tell, I really like mashed potatoes.

Also, this week I noticed the sky isn’t pitch-black when I leave work at 6pm, which made my heart soar. I can almost…almost…feel spring out there. Which means lots more produce and lots more food posts and lots more opportunities to eat good food with dear ones.

You Never Know

Growing up, to put it nicely, I wasn’t much of a lentil person. My G-ma would make homemade daals, and I’d turn my nose up at them, or, more likely, it was the only thing to eat and I had to gulp it down as quickly as possible.

Lentils were just kind of boring. I couldn’t tell if they were a bean or not, (Truth? I still don’t really know what they are) but it was hard to register them in my head as anything good or worth liking. Then, it so happens, I grew up on some level and within the last year have actually started liking (!) and making (!!) lentil soup.

From The Vagabond Table

Yesterday, on a whim, I looked up the always-delicious blog Fresh 365, and saw a recipe for Warm Lentil Salad. I mean…it looked good. I just wasn’t craving to make it. At all. Nevertheless, I knew my roomie would like it, sent her the link, and off we went on a lentil-salad-crash-course. And friends, it was an easy ride, SO easy to make, in fact, that I almost didn’t believe it. Healthy, too. More importantly, it packed a certain “wow” factor that I wasn’t expecting at all, neither was Roni, and when we were munching away while watching The Time Traveler’s Wife (btw, movie was ok, book SO much better!), we had that “this is totally going into the permanent recipe” collection kind of lightning bolt. Yay us!

From The Vagabond Table

Lentils during Lent! My punny-ness is epic.

I love things that surprise you, that unbalance you, that force you to look at things in a new way. It could be a person you meet, a new activity, a book or, in this case, it could be as humble as a lentil salad….you just never know.