I made these last week, after many months since last having served it.  When I served it then, my son’s friend was here for dinner and kept exclaiming at how our food was so much better than theirs (this had my kids looking skeptical, since his family often goes out to eat and a lot of what they eat is processed healthy food, the kind of food my kids know of as ‘treat’ food).  We served it at that time with soaked cornmeal corn cakes and several kinds of fermented vegetables – so it was a thoroughly healthy meal.  I don’t know why it took me so long to put them on the menu again!  My ds10 enjoyed them so much last week that he asked me to put them on this week’s menu, too!  It’s a quick, easy, and inexpensive dish, so I’m sharing it here with you.

Honey Baked Lentils

• 1. c. dried lentils
• 2 c. water
• 2 T. honey
• 2 T. soy sauce
• 2 T. olive oil
• 1/2 t. ginger
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 small onion, chopped

Put everything into a covered pan, and bake at 350 degrees until tender.  I’d estimate this serves about 4 people; I think we use four cups of dried lentils for our family.

* I start preparing for this dish a couple of days in advance, by soaking the lentils overnight.  Then I drain the lentils off, and let them sit in the bowl for the rest of the day.  Before I go to sleep, I rinse them in a strainer again.  Even in this cold weather, they started to sprout within this period of time.  If you do soak your lentils first, you won’t need nearly so much water, since it’s already absorbed so much water through the soaking – we cut it down drastically, to maybe a 1/2 c. for the entire quadrupled recipe.  Though this isn’t necessary, it’s what I try to do with bean and lentils to maximize the nutritional value. 

Avivah