My favourite winter food: home cooked lentils + pasta + sausages

[cyprusmax47]

As I like cooking (every day, exept Saturday's, when I have fish lunch at Timi beach) I will post here my favourite autumn/winter food, which is also easy to freeze the leftovers.

Ingredients:
400 gr large lentils, 1 large onion, 3 large garlic cloves, 2 veg.stock, 1.5 l water, 2x 125gr chopped bacon (Lidl) Capunti Pasta (Lidl), Nuremberg sausages (Lidl), 3-4 tbs white vinegar, salt, sugar, black pepper,

How to do it:

The cut bacon in a non-stick frying pan until slightly brown, then add the cut onion and the cut garlic until slightly coloured, while in the meantime you bring ca 1,5 l vegetable soup to the boil in a large enough high sauce pan (the lentils will expand!)
As soon as the soup is boiling you add the lentils, stir proper and reduce the heat as soon as the lentils are floating. Now you can add the cooked bacon into the same pan and put the lid on.
On little heat, (electric 2-3 only) led it simmer and stir from time to time for about 40-60 minutes (depending your lentils)
After that time it supposed to be ready, don't overcook them.
Now, not before they are ready, you add 3-4 tbs vinegar, black pepper, 1 coffee spoon sugar, and quite a bit of salt

It is a traditional main dish in Swabia (Germany, Stuttgart) together with hand made pasta (Spaetzle) but this is too complicated for a lot of people, so I am using instead ready pasta from Italy, Capunti, which have a similar texture. Their cooking time is 14-15 min.!
Further I prepare Nuremberger "rostbratwurst" which I add together with the pasta last minute when I dish up.

Leftovers of the lentils are easy to freeze, the other components I cook always fresh and add to the defrosted lentils at a time.

Try it, and enjoy your meal. I wonder if you like it though... it is my dinner today and nearly ready cooked...

Max

[Dominic]

That sounds delicious.

[cyprusmax47]

Yes, it was.... and how it looked ready cooked 5 min. ago....



Max

[cyprusmax47]

As this type of Italian pasta was a bit undercooked today, I heated butter in a pan until slightly brown and tossed them one minute. On top of it I grated some Italian Parmesan which tasted of course delicious, while the pasta was cooked until soft. What I realized today was, that obviously due to a large demand in electricity for heating in Cyprus, the voltage in the kitchen dropped from normal 244 volt down to 231 volt which means it will effect your cooking time...

Max

[PW in Polemi]

Looks good, Max. I am learning to cook and often throw a couple of handfuls of lentils into the slow cooker. Last Thursday, it was boneless beef shin, carrots, garlic, onions, red pepper, lentils and beef stock. My guests really enjoyed it, served with jacket potatoes, and there was just enough left over for me to have as soup for lunch yesterday.

[cyprusmax47]

Looks good, Max. I am learning to cook and often throw a couple of handfuls of lentils into

Well, perhaps you would like to try a very quick and easy typical Cypriot dish, which I prepared today and using yesterdays leftover lentils as a side dish, which was surprisingly matching.

One thing beforehand: you must like garlic and also peppermint.

So now the Cypriot dish:

Cut 2 medium-size Zucchini/courgettes into rather fat slices (thick as a thumb) and fry them in little fat like sunflower oil. Salt and black pepper on top (it helps when turning the slices, you know which one you missed) and 2 sliced garlic cloves. Little heat (3-4 electric) and get them both sides slightly brownish. Now is the time to add quite a large amount of butter and dried mint leaves on top (not before as otherwise bitter) You can test if they are cooked with a fork and if they are medium soft you add 3 fresh eggs on top without stirring them. Salt and pepper on the eggs and after ca 2 minutes you stir everything together until the eggs are slightly cooked. Give it a little rest in the pan without anymore heat, ready.
( low in calories and carbohydrates, high protein )

Max

[PW in Polemi]

Thanks for that, Max. I have tried the egg and courgette before as it is one of my favourites on a meze menu. However, I beat the eggs together first and so ended up with scrambled eggs with courgettes!
I will try your method next time.