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The Holy Grail
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A few years back, I Asked MetaFilter: “What do you think is the cheapest, healthiest, tastiest, easiest meal to prepare?”

I got several excellent answers. But having now made this lentil tomato stew numerous times, I realize I’ve found the answer. Every time I make it, I’m shocked at how easy it is, how delicious it is, and how cheap it is. And dagnabit, it’s also super-healthy. Thought I’d share. Back to playing Dragon Age: Origins.

12 comments

Ahhh! I just downloaded Dragon Age: Origins over the weekend! But I haven’t gotten very far yet. Maybe I need to eat some lentil tomato stew whilst playing…

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It’s spectacular. More on that after I beat it. I’ve almost got Andraste’s Ashes.

Tim Carmody says…

Man, why can’t anyone make games I want to play for either the Mac or the Wii? Oh, wait – it’s because I don’t actually play hard-core games like this, but little-kid games like Lego Star Wars. (Which still took forever to come out on the Mac and the Wii.)

My brain said, “dal or kichari” before I finished reading your sentence. Looking at the thread, it looks like that and salad are the two best themes. Which is basically what you have–tomato dal. Here’s kichari for you to try one day: the Bengali variation on the lentils and rice many metafilter mention.

Wash 1 cup of mung beans toss it in a pot with enough water to cover generously. Set it to boil and while it’s boiling chop or open up some vegetables (a bell pepper, some cauliflower and a patoto; potatoes and carrots and celery; peas and carrots; bag of greens, really anything) toss it in along with half a cup of rinsed rice after the mung beans have been boiling for five minutes with another cup of water. Add some salt, garam masala, ginger powder, black pepper and let it boil again, then let it simmer. While it’s stirring open up a bag of chips or roast some pappadums. When most of the water is absorbed, you can eat it with as much or as little oily salty hot mango pickle and ghee or butter as you like. Toss on the chips/pappadums for crunch.

I’m guessing Robin ate some of this back in in his Dhaka days? Or maybe not, it’s so zero fancy that I can imagine no one thought to feed it to even a long-term guest.

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No, I TOTALLY ate a ton of that, and I still lust after it! You can’t get it in restaurants of course (at least none that I’ve found)—and even if you could I guess it would feel a little off—you want to be eating it curled up in your apartment, not in some stiff-backed restaurant chair.

This recipe is great! I am 100% going to try it!

Yes, its very nice for a cold rainy day. That is the super easy super simple Snark version. There are many others, some of which may better hit the memory spot for you. They can be supplied.

Mmmm, sounds yummy. Yeah, I was going to say “replace the lentils with chickpeas and this sounds like one of my easy standards” :).

woops, I forgot the Turmeric. Good for the brain.

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This is my easy/tasty/healthy thing with lentils and tomatoes, good for toaster ovens: at Trader Joe’s, get two packages of grape tomatoes and two packages of pre-cooked black beluga lentils (optional: a block of feta cheese). Dump the lentils in an oven-safe dish; wash the tomatoes and dump them in the dish too. Mix together with a couple good spoonfuls of olive oil. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes, or until the lentils are toasty and the tomatoes are roasty (yessss, two of my favorite types of flavors). Put a little crumbly feta cheese on top and let the thing cool for a couple minutes. Eat with a spoon. Makes two or three meals.

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zomg, that sounds delicious. Roasty tomatoes are one of my favorites too!

Tim Carmody says…

My old stand-by when I cooked for a vegetarian house — grill zucchini and plenty of garlic in olive oil, add roasted red peppers, diced tomatoes, white cannelini beans, some salt, and plenty of chili, basil, black pepper, and rosemary, cook until yummy, serve over couscous. Fast, cheap, and delicious.

(I don’t much like lentils, but I love white beans.)

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