Creating a Savory Meal with Canadian Lentils

In which I attend a food conference thinking I made food things for my family to eat and left feeling like I could cook!

Here’s how it went down…Buffy and I attended BlogHer Food ’16 as volunteers. “BlogHer FOOD?!” you say. Food like, cooking? A food conference? I get your confusion; I am not a “food” person. I like to eat but always get intimidated by the whole pageantry (yes, I went there) of cooking, prep, plating…gah! When I make dinner it’s a quick affair from the pool of about seven recipes that I have memorized, made with the same small selection of ingredients and sometimes it’s a hit, sometimes we cue sad trombones (womp, womp).

After BlogHer Food, I came home ready to cook, ready to make that new beautiful kitchen in my new home my playground and thanks to the Canadian Lentil booth, I had two jars full of lentils to start with. The booth was gorgeous with jars of spices, bags of lentils and recipe suggestions. I felt so empowered and ready to try all the things, all the things being the two jars of lentil mixtures that Chef Christine helped me create.

When I headed home, those two jars, one a Cajun mixture and one an Indian mixture, were added to the pantry. When I asked the family, they voted to try the Cajun mixture and I got cooking. In spite of attending a food conference just mere days before I approached this meal prep in my usual manner of cooking, haphazardly measuring ingredients, adding things willy nilly, engaging in all kinds of foolishness that result in lackluster soup. After the addition of some veggies and a few more ingredients dinner was not ruined and served.

Belly Busters: Soup's On! with @CdnLentils

Soup’s on!

The excitement from BlogHer soon dulled an we found ourselves falling back into the same rotation of familiar meals and ingredients. Between work, school, play practice and sports it would seem there was no time to be getting all fancy in the kitchen. There was always a reason to not try a thing because busy, right? Then the weather took a dip, the fridge was a little bare and those lentils were calling. This time I took time to measure ingredients, peruse the Canadian Lentils site and the Indian spices mixture was thrown into the slow cooker.

Belly Busters: Soup's On! with @CdnLentils

The results? Swoon! The house was scented with a savory aroma, even my picky teen was excited to try a bowl.

To create your own swoon worthy meal, check out the links below. While we added veggies and sausage to our mixture to make our lentils a meal, the lentils could be a yummy side.

Belly Busters: Soup's On! with @CdnLentils

For an Italian spices mix, visit this link- http://www.lentils.ca/recipe/italian-spiced-lentils/
For an Indian spices mix, visit this link- http://www.lentils.ca/recipe/indian-spiced-lentils-2/
For a Cajun spice mix, visit this link – http://www.lentils.ca/recipe/cajun-spiced-lentils/

Stay social:
Follow me on Instagram (I’m on there as @sayitrahshay) to experience my food exploration and cooking journey.
Check out the folks at Canadian Lentils. Visit them online to sign up for recipes and follow them across social for beautiful photos and meal ideas.

Enjoy!
-r