A few weeks ago my family was gifted a pound of lentils, half a bottle of seasoned rice vinegar, a whole buncha canned tomatoes and a pound of feta cheese. We had a family picnic happening last Sunday so I figured it was the perfect time to make a big lentil salad.
Now, I’ve served lentil salad to rave reviews in the past but it wasn’t so willingly accepted this time around. I made two batches, one with feta and one without, because I knew darn well my kids won’t touch feta cheese. As I was happily mixing a batch my 8 year old daughter asked if she could help. When we were done she sheepishly asked “I helped make it, so I don’t have to eat it, right?”
Let me tell you something, this lentil salad was FANTASTIC.
Meg’s Under-Appreciated Lentil Salad Recipe
-Cook lentils according to package, allow to cool completely
(cook about 1/4 cup raw per person)
-Add rice vinegar to taste
-Add chopped onions and red pepper if desired
-Drain a can of diced tomatoes and add
-Add a handful of feta cheese if you like
*I used brown lentils because that’s what we were given, because that’s all the stores here sell
*I used about 1/4 bottle oregano seasoned rice vinegar but I think any would work. If you don’t have rice vinegar you could use apple cider vinegar or white vinegar but you may want to add a little sugar
*I cooked the entire pound of lentils so I used two cans of tomatoes
I took the with-feta half to the family picnic, to which only two families showed. One family was mine, with 5 of 7 people who won’t touch lentils. Needless to say, I brought a lot of lentil salad home.
I tried to feed my kids the lentils during the week, I really did, but they remained no lentil stalwarts. Yesterday I opened the lentil salad to assess the situation and was dismayed to find it slimey. I threw 95% of the lentil salad into the trash. For shame :(
On the bright side I did a magnificent leftover recovery this week! We had spaghetti for lunch one day and a weird chicken pasta thing for dinner (it was not spectacular). We had about 2 servings of spaghetti and at least 5 of the weird thing leftover and that’s a lot of food to go to waste. I picked the chicken out of the weird pasta thing, combined it with the spaghetti, covered it with a little leftover sauce and cheese and baked it in the oven. The kids love baked spaghetti and baked ziti so I added it to a dinner of chicken nuggets. We *still* have leftovers though, so it’ll be lunch today.
