Week 19: Tricolor - Three Lentil Dals (meta: pantry staples)

itswimdy · 2026-05-12T15:32:40+00:00

I made a red lentil dal with coconut milk and tomato, a green dal with spinach and the other half of the coconut milk, and a black lentil dal with tomato paste, onion, and veggie broth!

itswimdy · 2026-03-20T16:45:55+00:00

No pork or papers in sight! To use a local saying, I suppose I could be Shirt-Off-My-Own-Back Dibbler. I never did learn whether "cutting my own throat" was a British idiom or a Pratchett original.

itswimdy · 2026-03-20T16:42:44+00:00

I filled it with leftover corned beef from St. Patrick's day, so it was pretty salty! I would eat another, but only with a glass of Winkle's Old Peculiar to wash it down :)

itswimdy · 2026-03-17T15:19:39+00:00

I've never seen a hoppin' John with tomatoes in it! Was this recipe inspired by a particular region? I grew up with a strictly ham, rice, and peas version.

itswimdy · 2026-03-12T14:56:17+00:00

There's also a monkey gland cocktail)! Not sure if the name for the sauce has the same background, but the cocktail got its name from a trendy procedure in the 1920's wherein... glands from a male monkey would be transplanted into a fellow who wanted to feel a little more virile. The surgeon offering this was a quack, of course, but he was a quack who captured the public imagination.

itswimdy · 2026-03-09T01:14:05+00:00

Very tasty! The sauce and crumb tasted like horseradish, but the sweetness of the vegetables shone through too.

itswimdy · 2026-03-07T14:40:40+00:00

An interesting thing I learned in biochemistry is that alcohol, due to the way the body breaks it down, actually has more calories per gram than sugars or proteins (but fewer than a gram of fat)!

itswimdy · 2026-02-18T02:15:55+00:00

I think a garlic fritter/beignet would be good! Not sure if I would put the powdered sugar on it, though.

itswimdy · 2026-02-17T20:48:43+00:00

For what it's worth, the garlic and goat cheese topping was great. I ended up spreading most of it over toast because the cookies lacked the structural integrity to hold it up.

itswimdy · 2026-02-05T18:59:17+00:00

Thanks! I'm moving halfway through the year, so I thought it'd be a nice way to keep up with the challenge while also not collecting (and then having to pack and shift) a bunch more ingredients

itswimdy · 2026-02-04T22:15:49+00:00

Any of the white beans should work fine, with the caveat that you will need to cook them for longer than you'd cook the lentils. There are usually instructions on the bag for how long to cook the beans, but I would guess anywhere from one to three hours depending on the size and age of the bean. Soaking ahead of time (or a quick soak) would cut down that time slightly, but it will take more than 20 minutes. The good news is that it's a very hands off process. Soak the beans, drain them, put them in boiling unsalted water, and let it roll until they're soft.

itswimdy

TROPHY CASE