the lowly lentil

We once had a neighbour with four children. She said she would have had more had it been socially acceptable. So here's my confession; there are, at this moment, 4 kinds of lentils in my pantry (only because I recently finished the lovely French Dupuy lentils that were there) and there would likely be more kinds except, well, you know...

So along with that admission, I have another -- I love dal. Devoted followers may remember the  "face-that-only-a-mother-could-love" tote-bag from a loooong time ago. The bag is still around and has gotten a surprising (to me anyway) number of compliments since, which only goes to show that I am a very poor judge of what might be popular.

Dal (or dahl) is probably the meal-time equivalent of the "face-that-only-a-mother-could-love". It's lumpy, mushy, not a soup but not quite a stew and usually in shades of green or brown. It's rarely on a restaurant menu, but if it is, I want it. If it isn't, I'll go for the risotto, which is really just the high-class Italian cousin of dal after all.

If I opened a restaurant, variations of dal would be on the menu, every day. In fact, maybe ONLY variations of this would be on the menu -- Dals-R-Us? No, don't worry, I'm not about to do that (because I know I'm a poor judge of what might be popular) but, I will say that you should give it a try and there are as many recipes out there as there are kinds of lentils!

So why the lentil love today? I'm on my own for dinner and instead of doing the responsible thing and finishing up the mounting pile of leftovers in the fridge, I'm making dal.