Tasty Lentil Paste

This blog will not be a singular theme. The human experience is extremely vast, and the non-linear, non-narrative format of a blog creates a good medium to talk about a variety of things. Strangely enough though, most bloggers choose a theme and explore that particular topic until they have run out of things to say.

Today, I want to talk about lentils. For those of you cutting back during this Great Recession (so, most everyone), you might want to try lentils. Lentils are high in fiber, protein, Folate (B9) and Iron. Also, they’re cheap. I can usually get a pound of dry lentils for about 67 cents. Unlike most pulses, you don’t have to soak lentils overnight or anything. You may want to sift through in case of small pebbles in the bag, but personally i’ve never encountered a pebble in my bag of lentils. Apparently it happens though. There are a variety of ways you can cook lentils, one of the most common in the Western hemisphere being lentil soup.

However, this recipe I will be teaching you today is far from traditional cuisine. Here it goes

Equipment needed:

medium 4 or 6 quart saucepan

mixing bowl

wooden spoon

Ingredients:

6-8 cups of water (for boiling)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound dry lentils

3 tablespoons peanut butter

1 tablespoon lime or lemon juice

1 tablespoon ground cumin (optional)

1 teaspoon garam masala (optional)

2-4 tablespoons of Sriracha sauce (optional, don’t use unless you like spicy)

2-3 tablespoons plain yogurt

Instructions:

Boil your water in a medium saucepan. Once you get a good rolling boil, put your pound of lentils in and cover it. (Hint: if your saucepan doesn’t have a lid, you can use a plate. Just don’t touch it with bare hands.) Alright, now turn down the stove to medium low heat. Let cook for about an hour.

Then, using your lid (or plate), drain out the excess water from the saucepan, being careful not to spill out all your lentils (you may lose a few, but it’s not a big deal). Okay, now that they’re drained, transfer your lentils from the saucepan into your mixing bowl. But keep your saucepan, you still need it.

 Now, you’re going to put your tablespoon of olive oil in your saucepan, and heat it up on medium heat, until it starts to get a lot of bubbles. Then you dump your lentils back into the saucepan, and stir until its consistency is fairly uniform and paste-like. Now add the peanut butter and stir, making sure the mix the peanut butter with the entire batch. Then, add the lime (or lemon) juice.

Once everything is mixed and fairly uniform in consistency, you can turn down the heat to medium low and add the garam masala and cumin (if you want them, but if you’re not hot for those flavors, its fine without it). Stir for a few minutes on the low heat, then transfer back to your mixing bowl.

Here, you add your yogurt and the Srirarcha (if you want it). Once your stirred everything in completely in the bowl, you’re done. You can serve this in bowls, on plates with rice, or with tortillas. I usually like to eat mine with tortillas. Buen provecho!

A small note of leftist thought, with an intro from George Carlin

Now, I don’t share in Carlin’s pessimism. Nothing that is made cannot be unmade. If the factories that produce the goods can be re-tooled and restructured to produce different and better products, so too can a society be reworked to produce better standards of living.

Leftists understand that economic conditions of a society affect its politics and culture, and vice versa. Carlin describes America as a society whose economy controlled largely by a relatively small group of people in the corporate class, and this is certainly true. By extension then, we know they also have a control on the politics and culture of America. (This is, by the way, certainly not unique to America. This system, which leftists refer to as late capitalism, is a global reality that touches the lives of everyone on the globe in one way or another.)

However, our current situation hasn’t always existed, and will not always exist. Change is a constant of human societies and every person has both some means and every interest in helping shape what the next direction will be.

That is the first hurdle to be overcome, is pessimism. Things can (and will) change. There is often a popular idea that certain negative social conditions–racism, poverty, inequality–can not change. Such thinking is often promoted by the ruling classes of most every society throughout time and geography, in some form or another. It’s the foundation on which all forms of slavery exist. In ancient times, it was because the gods had decreed it to be so. In our contemporary times, it’s often just said, “Well, that’s just the way it is.” But no social condition “just is”. They are all created, and they all can be undone.

Once you have cleared this first hurdle, you have begun your path to freedom.