Lentil Hunt 2011: The Quest to make Lentil Fritter Pitas

Lentil fritters. Hmmmm. They sounded a little weird, but we're brave so we thought we'd give them a try. Man, are we glad that we did. SPOILER ALERT: they are delicious.

The recipe is simple enough. You use your food processor to make the lentil patties, fry them up, make a slaw of red cabbage and a sour cream based topping to go with it. Our only hitch came in preparing to make the recipe. I, for the life of me, could not find canned lentils. I walked around. I asked people. I looked quizzically at the shelves. I checked two different grocery stores, both of which did not have canned OR dried lentils (hence the post title). Finally, at the third store, I found them. Yeesh. Thank goodness the rest of the recipe was easy. 

Anyways, back to the cooking part. In a food processor, puree 1 can of the lentils with the cilantro, parsley, garlic, and cumin until nearly smooth. We didn't have fresh cilantro, so I used some cilantro paste (which is handy in a pinch) in it's place.

I realize the paste doesn't look very appetizing, but it definitely serves its purpose.

Transfer to a bowl and mix in the bread crumbs (we used panko), the remaining can of lentils, salt, and pepper.

Pre-transformation.

Mix together the cabbage with the lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of the oil, salt and black pepper.

Red cabbage, soaking in the lemon juice.

In a different bowl, stir together the yogurt, crushed red pepper, and 1/4 cup water.This will thin out the sauce a little.

I'm a big fan of the Greek yogurt, and especially as a sour cream substitute.

Take the lentil mixture and form them into sixteen 1/2 inch thick patties. Heat 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil over medium-high heat. Cook the patties for 3 to 4 minutes per side. You can using the remaining tablespoon of oil if you make them in two batches (which I did). 

We had a few less than 16. I was a bit generous with the lentil patties.

We stuffed each pita with the patties, cabbage mixture, yogurt sauce, and topped it with fresh parsley (substitute for cilantro). 

That squash on the side looks a little sad. Let's go in for a close-up on the good stuff.

We went for the pocket pitas (you could do pocket-less and eat it more like a gyro). We put two patties in each and added the toppings.

YEAH. That's more like it.

I was pretty impressed with how this turned out. I absolutely love falafel sandwiches, and can't get enough of them. This tastes pretty darn close to falafel, and I feel a little better that it isn't deep fried. 

I will say that it is a little messy if the pita doesn't hold up with all those ingredients. Maybe that's why they suggested pocket-less -- so that the pita bread a little thicker. Either way, Paul and I both really liked them, and they are making their way onto our regular dinner rotation. 

Well, once I find more lentils.

Summer Squash with Baked Eggs

I really like weekend breakfast. I'm a coffee and granola bar on the go kind of girl during the week, so when I have the time to cook something yummy on the weekend to enjoy in the morning, I am all over it. We had some leftover grilled zucchini and yellow squash from earlier in the week, so I looked for a recipe to incorporate those items (that wasn't simply adding them to an omelet). I found this delicious looking one -- and decided to make it.

Making use of that grater attachment on the food processor.

Start off by grating the squash and zucchini. Combine the grated vegetables with 1 tsp. of salt and let drain for 30 minutes. 

Draining the liquid helps crisp up the vegetables and keep it from getting soggy.

While the vegetables are draining, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 

In an ovenproof skillet, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Cook the shallots, garlic and paprika for just a couple minutes, until fragrant (I think it was about 2 minutes?). Squeeze as much liquid as possible out of the squash and zucchini, then add it to the pan. Add the tomatoes, and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
 

We used cherry tomatoes, but I'm sure you could use any tomatoes you have on hand. I like the way cherry tomatoes come out after being in the oven.

While everything is cooking up, prepare the goat cheese and chiffonade the basil. I cut up some sourdough bread we had in the house as well.

The creaminess of chevre (the goat cheese) is awesome for breakfast.

Once the skillet is ready, mix in the basil and goat cheese.
 

That may be more than 4 oz of goat cheese. Oh well.

After mixing in the cheese and basil, make four small wells in the mixture. Pour a little olive oil in each well, and then crack an egg into the well. Top each egg with salt, pepper and a sprinkle of paprika. 
 

I used the recipe's suggested method of cracking the egg into a small bowl, and the pouring it into the well for three of the eggs. I'm sure you have no idea which one I did differently.

Bake until egg whites are set, but yolks are still soft -- about 10 minutes. The eggs will continue to cook in the hot pan after you remove it from the oven, so if you like your eggs goopy, you'll need to make your move quickly to get it out of the pan (so that it won't continue to cook and harden up). 
 

Hot out of the oven and ready to go!

I used a flat plastic spatula to cut the mixture into servings. It was pretty easy to scoop out with the egg whites being set. 

Summery breakfast!

I thought that this turned out great. Although it seems a little counter intuitive to turn on the oven in the summer, this was worth it. Some of the reviewers for the recipe talk about cooking it completely on the stove, which is also an option if you don't want to fire up the oven in the summer.

The softness of the egg yolk and the creaminess of the goat cheese go really well together. The squash and zucchini make a nice crispy base. I'm interested in trying this with some other vegetables -- maybe using sweet potatoes as part of the base in addition or in replacement of either the squash or the zucchini.