Tomato-Radish Lentil 'lenta

In a shocking turn of events, the weather turned cold for the weekend. The (relative) heat of last week made cooking difficult, as did a rather packed schedule. I managed a round of bagels, on which the yeast did not activate. To follow that up, I cooked a dinner of which none of my photographs turned out. Cell phone camera, combined with low light, strikes again. But, I'll still provide the recipe because it was highly edible and a great foil for the cold weather. The dish was partially influenced by a brunch item at Gather - the lentil and polenta. It was a great breakfast food that I wanted to fashion as a dinner. I mostly failed, because I don't season things enough. More following of recipes may be in my future. So, yes, the flavor could stand to be improved but everything else about the dish was good. Have at it (or don't).

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Lentil 'lenta

Serves 2

1 standard size can of lentils or lentil soup

2/3 cup dry polenta

2 cups water

bunch of radishes (15 or so)

2 flavorful tomatoes

1 shallot

1 tbsp olive oil

spices other than what I used (cumin, dill, and cayenne) or in larger quantities

salt

(optionally) butter or cheese

So, lots of things going on at once with this recipe. Take 5 radishes and dice them, reserve a single radish, then slice the rest in half. Toss the halved radishes in the olive oil and salt, then place in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Once they are in the oven, dice the shallot and sautee it over medium until it has yellowed and lost some flavor. Cut the tomatoes into 6-8 slices each. Put one of them, as well as the diced radish, in with the shallot. Place the other tomato in a pot with the water and bring to boil while making sure the pan doesn't burn. You can, if you want, add some butter or cheese to the pot of water.

Once the water is boiling, add the polenta, reduce heat, and stir. Add the can of lentils to the frying pan, season it, then alternate between stirring the polenta and lentil mixture. You are aiming for a runny polenta mixture, which takes 5-10 minutes of cooking. This should be timed for the radishes coming out of the oven. Serve in a bowl with polenta put in first, the lentil mixture spooned into the center, and top with the baked radish. Slice the single, reserved radish for garnish.

Radish Bruschetta and Butter Lettuce Butter Bean Boats (contains no actual butter)

Decided to knock out a staple ingredient of my recent dinners, go to the grocery store, and just think up something random. Maybe I shouldn't do this in the future. I said "no rice or tofu" and ended up cooking some delicious bruschetta, butter lettuce leaves filled with butter beans and snow peas. Everything also had radish in it because, hey, it looked delicious. And everything was delicious, but nothing seemed to pair well, my plating failed, and I didn't use any herbs or spices beyond salt. Also I totally failed at staying away from my staples by cooking bruschetta, which got me through large parts of college (like nachos, but questionably healthier).

First the bruschetta (and side salad, because a head of lettuce is a lot of lettuce for one person and I couldn't use it all making boats).

Sovrano Grana/Radish Bruschetta with Frisee, plus side salad

I'm not sure a recipe would do much good here, but my cooking directions for bruschetta might. I used a very hearty whole wheat bread with wheat bran and rolled in sunflower seeds. To properly prep it, you slice the bread about pinky-thick and brush olive oil and salt on both sides. You then put on thinly sliced topping of choise (usually tomato, here I used radish,) covered that in grated cheese (Sovrano Grano in this case), and add a few sprigs of your garnish (usually rosemary or basil, but here frisee). Cook it for 15-20-ish minutes in a 450 degree oven. About a minute or two before you think it is done, pull it out, drop a little more cheese on and one final sprig of garnish, place back in the oven and turn off the heat. Let this sit for a few minutes to melt the cheese and fix the garnish.

Butter Bean Butter Lettuce Boats

The second part of the meal was the "protein" portion, which I arrived at in the grocery store via the following observations:

• Butter lettuce is delicious.
• As are butter beans - which, if you haven't had, are like pinto beans that have been gamma-radiated and angered. Except they don't turn green.
• Snow peas are wonderful lightly cooked.
• Radish looks awesome (and I had leftovers from above becase things at the grocery store really aren't meant for one person).
• Oh hey butter lettuce makes nice little boats to put shit in.

I baked the radish for a while, and cooked the beans and some snow peas over medium-low heat for 10 minutes with the bean juice and grated cheese. Served this in butter lettuce boats, the finest ship in the leafy-green navy.

I'd say it was a good dish with flavors that paired well, but the presentation could use some work. Snow pea oars for little butter bean men with radish hats? Its a shame I only thought of it now, writing this post, or there would have been 2.718x the amount of awesomeness in this post.