A Creative Rut

I have had the pleasure of helping to judge a youth writing competition this week for work.  We instructed 3rd – 8th grade students in the area to write a 300-500 word story titled “The Lost Dragon of White Lake,” and right now I am so impressed with the creativity of the entries!  I don’t remember a time when I let my imagination run so wild, and it has been refreshing to jump inside a s head for a bit and enjoy the ride.  The stories have been so interesting that I have had a hard time writing in my own blog for fear of sounding…boring?  and predictable?  My life is anything but predictable right now.  But then again…as a parent, you can pretty much guarantee that at some stage you will be cleaning poop out of the tub (Thursday night), cleaning projective vomit off one of your only clean shirts that fits and looks decent (this morning), drinking too much coffee (every morning), heating up leftover leftovers for dinner (Thursday), and attempting to balance the needs of your husband (attention NOW) with the needs of your kiddos (attention RIGHT NOW) and your need for sleep.

The summary of this is that right now I’m trying not to fall into a rut, where life is predictable chaotic.   I’m missing those days when imagination was all that was needed for a good time, when my worries and stresses didn’t stifle my ability to enjoy the moment, and when I too could have written a kick-ass entry in the “Lost Dragon of White Lake” competition.  So perhaps I’ll try:

……..

Hmm, well, that didn’t go so well.  Maybe Dragons just aren’t my thing.

This meal was my thing.  And Austin’s – a great way to get a wee one to eat fish!

Cod in a Ginger Cream Sauce

1.5 T butter (the real stuff!)

1.5 T flour*

1 cup milk*

2 cloves garlic, crushed*

1 T fresh grated ginger*

2  fillets Cod (I’m guessing they were 5-6 ounces each?)

salt and pepper, to taste

Melt butter over medium heat in a large fry pan.  Using a whisk, mix in flour till a paste forms.  Sloooooowwwwwly add milk, whisking constantly, till well combined.  Add garlic and ginger and mix well.  Turn heat to medium-low, and add fish fillets.  Cover and cook, turning once, till fish is flakey and cooked through.

*all measurements approximate and can be adjusted to your taste/desired creamy consistancy.  I don’t like to dirty measuring cups.

This served Lyndon, Austin, and I, with enough leftovers for Austin’s lunch the next day.

This was darn easy, but incredibly tasty.  We served it with bok choy that was sauted in garlic, ginger, and homemade pepper jelly, over some kashi pilaf.  Yum!

Returning to Work

I have been dreading the day I had to write this post.  I haven’t been shy lately with sharing that, if possible, I would just stay home and be a mom and make lots of babies.  I quite like being Susie homemaker – nursing babies, making baby food and healthy meals for the family, planning meals and grocery shopping, creating recipes, even doing laundry and vacuuming are all tasks I enjoy.  (Cleaning the bathroom and mopping are another story, but I would take it if it meant I could stay home….)

Anyhow, sadly, the time has come for me to head back to the grind.  These four weeks have gone all too fast, but duty calls.  Here are my tips for prepping the “back to work” trek.

1. Take a day where you truly do nothing but cuddle with your newborn.  On Friday, I sent Austin to daycare, and Wes and I spent the day cuddled up on the couch, making silly faces at each other and snuggling.  I didn’t do anything on my ever-growing to do list – no cooking, cleaning, laundry…just snuggles.  It was fantastic.  Then Austin spent the night with granna and papa and Wes, Lyndon, and I went out to a simple dinner.  The day of relaxing helped me mentally prepare for heading back into the “real world.”

2. Prep your meal plan for the week back at work to make it as easy as possible.  I spent Saturday making a meal plan of quick and easy recipes, bought the necessary groceries, boiled beans, etc., so that the upcoming week won’t be a slew of last-minute or stressful meals.  That said, I’ve given myself permission, if necessary, to throw the whole plan out the window and have cereal, sandwiches, or even order in from Pizza Slut.

3.  Accept that it won’t be a very productive week at work.  Any employer with half a clue knows this!

4.  Make it a short week, if possible.  I don’t plan on working Friday – Memorial Day weekend will be a long one for me – so at least it isn’t a full week!

5.  Do as much prep for the next day the night before as you possible can.  Pack lunches and daycare bags, plan out outfits, even mentally prepare breakfast.  Mornings are nutty, and taking as much out of the equation as possible is essential for mental stability.   (side note – I find that if I’m organized and pack lunches while making dinner (and thus while the knives and cutting boards are out and the kitchen is already a mess), it is much less painful and goes quite fast.  And I always make enough dinner that the leftovers become Austin and I’s “main course” for lunch the next day.)

[edited to add...]6. Have a fabulous drink – be it your favorite beer or a glass of wine – waiting for you when you get home.  You deserve it.

7. I am fortunate (amazingly, incredibly fortunate) to be able to take Wes to work with me till he is a bit older.  I think my employers agreed to this because they knew that if I had to put him in daycare, I probably wouldn’t come back for at least three months, and they figured me+baby was better than nobody (I am the director of a small non-profit – and the only employee, the rest of the work is done by incredible volunteers.  Being the only employee makes me sort of indispensable, which gives me a bit of bargaining power…).  So my “taking your baby to daycare” advice doesn’t, for me line up with the “back to work” advice.  But time flies, and I’m sure before I know it I’ll be dropping both Wes and Austin at daycare.  Since most other mommies aren’t this fortunate, I’ll add my advice on this here:

• Leave early so that you can “hang out” for a minute at daycare before you rush off.  some will disagree with me on this, taking the band-aid approach to drop-offs, but I find I feel better if I can take a minute to say hi to the folks watching my little ones, pass on any necessary info, and give the kids a quick cuddle.
• I said it above, but it it worth repeating – prep as much as you can the night before.  Make sure bags have enough nappies, wipes (if necessary), food/milk/formula, changes of clothes, diaper cream (if necessary), etc. ..
• On your way to work, stop and treat yourself to a fancy coffee.  You’ll need the caffeine, and chances are you haven’t been able to just “run in” and do anything since the baby was born – it is liberating

Back-To-Work Mexican Casserole

This not a typical Janelle meal – a fair amount of the ingredients come from a package or a can – but most of these are veggies, so it has it’s “healthy” elements.  And it is oh-so-tasty, and easy…

4 cans chopped green chilies, drained, rinsed, and patted dry

1 cup frozen corn

1 1/2 cup pinto beans (I use dried beans that I’ve boiled ahead of time on the weekend – you can sub a drained and rinsed can)

1 cup cheddar (or monterey jack) cheese, grated

3/4 cups milk

3 eggs

1/4 cup flour

dash salt

1 t cumin

dash hot pepper sauce, if you aren’t serving to toddlers.

Preheat oven to 350.  In a greased 11 x 7 baking dish, combine chili’s, corn, beans, and cheese.

(Austin was a big help – until he discovered the ungrated block of cheese…)

In a small bowl, beat eggs, milk, flour, and seasonings until smooth.  Pour over chili mixture.  Bake, uncovered, for 40-45 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean.  Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

(the fam dug in before I could take a picture…)

Serve with salsa, cottage cheese (could use sour cream) and blue corn tortilla chips for dipping.

Serves 4 (or mom+dad+toddler, with enough leftover for mom+toddler for lunch the next day )

Did that really happen?

That was what I had to ask myself when I woke up this morning to the hungry grunts of little Wesley.  I rolled over, and the clock said…well, an ungodly hour, but it was very close to 5 a.m.  In my sleepy haze, I did the math – 5.5 hours since I last fed the little guy. WAIT!  NEARLY 6 HOURS OF UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP! AND HE ISN’T EVEN A MONTH OLD YET!!! Austin didn’t hit that milestone til…10 ? 11 months?  longer?  And didn’t officially “sleep through the night” till 13 months. 13 long, sleep deprived, hazy months.  I vaguely remember them, kind of like I vaguely remember my college weekends, or months ski instructing in Australia.  Same haziness, different reasons.

5.5 hours.  That is a full night’s sleep to many, and an eternity to any mother of a newborn.

Not only that, but after nursing and getting him back to sleep (which, admittedly, took a while), I didn’t get woke again, by either kiddo, till nearly 8 a.m.  That is a solid night’s sleep in any new mom’s books!

I’m crossing my fingers that I am not jinxing this, that Wes isn’t just dangling the “sleep” carrot in front of me only to cruelly take it away.   But he has been a much better sleeper than Austin from the start, and I am banking on this continuing.  Please.

Perhaps it was the wonderful dinner we pulled together last night that set us up for sleeping success:

Cheater Meat Pies with Potato-Parsnip Mash

Lyndon loves a meat pie.  I’ve never been the biggest fan – mostly because I don’t love pastry crust (something I’m thankful for) or brown gravy (ewww….) but these things are a staple of the Australian diet, available at every “servo” (gas station) and corner shop. Lucky for me, he also likes a version made without the brown gravy, and a tomato-based sauce instead.  Making these into pies is time consuming, and in my books, unnecessary unless you need to sell them in a tidy little package.  They taste the same “deconstructed” and are infinitely easier to make.

Cheater Meat Pies

1 onion, chopped

1 T Olive Oil

1 lb. ground beef

1 can crushed tomatoes

pinch sea salt

1 T tomato paste

2 T Worcestershire Sauce

1 T Brown Sugar

1 1/2 cups frozen pea/carrot mix (or just peas, or just carrots, or fresh carrots…you get the point)

1 Sheet Puff Pastry

Preheat oven to 400.  Brown onion in oil till softened.  Add beef and cook till browned.  Add undrained canned tomatoes, salt, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar, stir till combined and let simmer 5 minutes to blend flavors.  Add frozen veggies and cook 5 more minutes, till warmed through.  If the mixture seems dry, add up to 1/2 cup beef stock.

In the meantime, cut up puff pastry into 6 squarish rectangle guys. Bake till browned and puffy.

Austin ate this plain with his mash.  Lyndon added heaps of hot sauce.  I added a good dose of horseradish because it sounded good – and it was!

Potato Parsnip Mash

I heart parsnips.  They are wonderful, and really spruce up your traditional mash.

4 small-medium parsnips, peeled and cut into 4 chunks

4 medium potatoes, cut into chunks (we leave peels on)

1/2 cup cottage cheese

splash milk

sea salt

Boil potatoes and parsnips till tender. Drain and mash, mix in milk and cottage cheese (option, but so tasty), add salt to tasty.

Serve potatoes with a scoop of meat pie, topped with a square of puff pastry.  We included a side of peas to get in another serving of veggies.

SO TASTY, FAST, and EASY!

Austin Feed Goats

We made a family trip this Saturday to Lewis Farm Markets.  I had been there before, but never with one of the kids – and thus had never ventured out into the advertised petting zoo/adventure area.  WOW!  That place is incredible!  We had a blast – and the entire experience cost us under $5 – including two pounds of asparagus and a green pepper.

The place is set up with a cute little farm store/market that has fresh produce and packaged “specialty” items like blueberry syrup and peach salsa.  They also sell ready-to-eat food like bbq’s and ice cream…but the real focus is the petting zoo.  Once you’ve done your obligatory wander through the store, you get to an impressive farm area stocked with goats, donkeys, cows, pony’s, peacocks, bunnies, an alpaca, zebra, and a wallaby.  There was the token barn cat, and then an adventure area with a giant “pillow” for kids to bounce on (it looked like a blast!), “go-carts” that were really bicycles (complete with a race track – the kids were going at it!), a small “train” pulled by a tractor, and a creepy slide that I made Lyndon take Austin down.

For a quarter, you get a handful of food to feed the animals.  $0.50 kept Austin busy for a good 20 minutes, tentatively (at first) feeding the goats and eventually getting brave enough to feed the zebra (he has big teeth!) and the pony.  He was so cute offering the animals their little pellets, and the experience obviously had an impact on him – all day Sunday and this morning he has been walking around saying “Austin feed goats.  Zebra.  Austin pet bunnies.  Bunny drinking water.  Austin ride pony.  Goats bye-bye….”  (He didn’t ride a pony, not sure where that is coming from…but the rest of it sums up our experience pretty well!)

I had no idea that we had such a cool place nearby – if you have a petting zoo in your area, take your toddler – they will love it!

Wes slept through the whole experience, but I’m sure he was culturally enriched and enjoyed it vicariously through me.

Feeding animals works up quite an appetite – and since it was a nice day, Lyndon volunteered to do grillage – and was I ever treated to a fantastic meal:

Grilled Steak Sammies with Parsnip Fries and Spring Greens

Ok, so Lyndon grilled the steak and fries – but I did all the prep, so here is the inside scoop:

Steak Marinade:

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup water

1 T olive Oil

2 cloves garlic, crushes

1 t ground ginger

1 t chili powder

Mix it all up, and pour on steaks (we had 4 palm-sized sirloins)- marinade up to 4 hours.

Parsnip Fries:

Cut parsnips into “sticks”, toss with olive oil and garlic salt.  If you haven’t tried parsnips, DO IT!  They are incredible.  If you like carrots and sweet potatoes, these will be up your alley.

Spring Greens:

Dressing: 1 T olive oil, 1/2 T apple cider vinegar, 1/2 T honey, sprinkle sea salt

Mix with 5 cups mixed spring greens – I used spinach, lettuce, and mustard greens I got at the farmers market

To cook:

Lyndon says you grill the steaks on high heat for “6 minutes on the first side, 4 on the second” for medium rare.  They were perfect!

We also grilled the parsnip fries till tender, and some chopped green pepper and onion (also tossed in olive oil and garlic salt) till charred.

Assemble into sammies, topping sliced steak with a bit of cheese and melt.  I put horseradish on my bun to kick things up a notch.

All in all, a perfect meal!

New Mommy Lentil Mess

Perhaps you’ve noticed that lentils are one of my go-to meals when I’m not in a mood to cook meat and want something easy, healthy, and filling.  I used to be scared of these little guys, but they really are SO easy to cook with, are great at taking on the taste of whatever you surround them with, and they are full of protein and fiber…and are CHEAP!!  We haven’t cooked a thing in quite a while – friends and family have been showering us with comfort meals, from Quiche to tuna-noodle casserole and oatmeal cookies.  But I’m sick of the leftovers and it was time to break out something with a slightly better nutritional profile. And I had a box of frozen spinach that was begging to be used.

New Mommy Curried Lentil Mess

1 cup lentils, rinsed

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 package frozen spinach

1 t turmeric

1 t cumin

2 t curry powder

1/2 t ground ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 t fresh ginger, grated

1 small onion, chopped

1 medium zucchini, chopped

salt, to taste

1/4 t stevia (or other sweetener, to taste)

Rice, for serving

Laughing Cow Wedges, or cream cheese

Throw all ingredients, except zucchini and rice, in a slow cooker. Dump in enough water to fill your empty can of tomatoes, twice.  Come to think of it, you could add the rice in the beginning and it would cook along, but I was out of rice and had to go buy it, so it got cooked separately.

Cook on low for 8 hours, adding the zucchini in the last hour, along with salt and sweetener.  Zucchini is optional – I had one that needed to be used.

Serve with rice, and mix a wedge of laughing cow into each bowl.  Garnish with: Tomatoes, Cilantro, Sour cream, Cottage Cheese (Austin’s gets mixed with a good amount of cottage cheese), plain yogurt…. or anything else that sounds good!  Copious amount of hot sauce optional.  If you aren’t serving this to kids, I would add 1/4 – 1/2 t cayenne to spice it up a bit.

Easy, super tasty, little clean up, and used up that pesky box of spinach. A winner!

Lentil goopiness shown with our “congrats on new baby” flowers

Good Food, Incredible Friends

Tonight, two of my best friends came over and helped me do what every pregnant woman (or really, every woman period!) needs help with: the last 10%.  If you are married to a typical man, you know exactly what I mean here:

So often, guys start up on a project full of enthusiasm and vigor.  They brazenly “break ground” and make incredible progress in a seemingly minuscule amount of time, and work diligently with focus…until the project is “pretty much” finished.  It has reached the stage of “presentable” or “functional,”…and then they fizzle out.  And that last 10%?  Well…It’ll get done.  Someday.

Just to be clear, this is not a “bag on my husband” post.  He works really hard and never ceased to impress me with his DIY skills, whether learned or improvised.  This is merely an observation that seems to ring true with so many of the male species.  Case in point – we were discussing this topic today at work, and a volunteer at the center who has lived in her current house shared this story:

“The other day, I was folding clothes in the laundry room and my husband came in.  He looked up above the door and said “hmm…I never finished that molding.  Why didn’t you bug me about it?  to which she responded….”I probably did, for the first 10 years!”

Hmm, there seems to be a theme.

Anyhow, the girls came over to help me finish off painting the bathroom.  Not that I couldn’t do it, but hiking up and down a step ladder with a 20+ lb baby strapped in my belly probably isn’t the best plan right now.

And finish off the painting they did!  Or rather, my friend Missy, (and incredibly artist by the way – check her out at www.dunegrass-studio.com), did, while Jen and I chatted and made sure she had ample wine to finish the job.  And finish she did – it looks fantastic, despite a small issue with purple ceiling paint.  THANK YOU MISSY!

Check it out! The sink is from Terrestrial Forming studios – by Peter Johnson.  The faucet – ebay. Lyndon made the frame for the mirror and the sink countertop.  And we’ll all just ignore that the sink and faucet aren’t caulked in…yet.  Someday.

(check out that beautiful paint job – straight lines!)

(yes, our child lock is broken.  I don’t recommend the safety first locks.  Don’t worry, all that is down there is toilet paper and towels.)

And my favorite part:

Austin’s little handprint

To show my gratitude, I made dinner.  It was a bit of a conundrum.  Missy isn’t eating much meat or wheat these days, and at the moment her allergies are requiring she stick with gently spiced foods.  Jen isn’t a fan of soup, my go-to veggie meals, so I had to improvise.

The result:

Lentil Apple Almond Loaf

1/2 cup lentils, cooked with a bay leaf till tender.

Olive oil

3 T flax

1 onion, chopped

2 medium carrots, choppped

3/4 cup almonds, chopped

1 apple, finely chopped

1 small zucchini, chopped

1 t dried thyme

2 T rice vinegar

1 T balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup raisins

pinch salt and pepper

1 cup bread crumbs (can use gluten-free bread for this)

Glaze

4 T ketchup

2-3 T honey

3 T applesauce

2 T apple cider vinegar

1 T arrowroot powder (or cornstarch)

Preheat oven to 350.

Get lentils cooking.  Mix flax with 1/2 cup water, let stand in a bowl.

In a large saucepan, heat olive oil and saute onions, almonds, and carrots 2-3 minutes, till softened.  Add rice vinegar, and saute a 1-2 more minutes.  Add in apple, zucchini, raisins, and thyme, and cook 3-4 minutes until softened and fragrant.  Toss in balsamic, salt, and pepper, and stir to combine.  Transfer to a large bowl and mix in breadcrumbs and flax/water mix.

In the meantime, combine ingredients for the glaze in a saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk till combined and thickened. Mix a little less than half the glaze in with the loaf mix.  Press mix into a loaf pan, or into muffin tins if you wish to speed up cooking time (like impatient me).  Brush remaining glaze over the top of your loaf/muffins.

Bake for 30 minutes (muffin tins) or 45 (loaf pan) till top is slightly crisped and your kitchen smells tasty.

Served it all with roasted broccoli and sweet potato, and a strawberry massaged kale salad (massage kale with a bit of salt, toss in apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and honey, and toss with sliced strawberries and salted sunflower seeds), and we were a bunch of happy (and healthy!) girls.  Thanks ladies!

Lettuce Wrap Satay

So good, so easy, so quick…

Pork Satay in Lettuce Wraps

1 lb ground pork (or ground chicken, or chicken cutlets)

1 head of lettuce

1 T peanut oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

3 medium carrots, chopped

1 T fresh ginger, grated (about a 1″ piece)

4 cloves garlic, crushed

2 T peanut butter

2 T soy sauce

1 T apple cider vinegar

about 1/4 cup water

1.5 T honey

Hot pepper flakes – if you wish for some heat

Rice, for serving

Start rice cooking.

Heat oil in a saucepan, brown the pork till no longer pink.  Add onion, carrot, ginger, garlic, and cook till veggies are softened.

Push pork and veggies to the side, and add peanut butter to the pan to melt.  Whisk in soy sauce, vinegar, and honey, add hot water to make it saucy.  Add hot pepper flakes, if using.  Mix sauce in with pork.

Peel off lettuce leaves.  Fill leaves with rice and meaty mixture, wrap and eat:

Austin dug in (he ate his over shredded lettuce) and Lyndon said it was “Awesome.”  I thought it was quite tasty and very filling…

What the kids are Eating

I realized the other day that I put 11 (11!) ingredients, minimum, in our morning oatmeal.  No wonder it takes me two hours min. to get myself and the bub ready in the morning. The good news is that he LOVES it – as evidenced below:

(side note – I’m so proud of him – he feeds himself completely these days and managed to just about lick that sucker clean!)

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That bowl started looking like this:

Into the mix: 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup whole milk, dash salt, 1 T ground flax, dash cinnamon, 1/2 banana cut into chunks, 1/2 t vanilla.  Cook on stovetop till cooked and tasty.  Mix in: frozen mixed berries, 2 T cottage cheese (sounds gross, but I swear it is fantastic and gives oats true “staying power.”) Top with: 1 T peanut butter, smeared around, and a drizzle of honey.  It makes my little guy happy, I swear it will make you happy as well.

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How does the rest of his day of eats look?  I’ve finally simplified the art of packing lunches for the wee one.  It helps that he can basically eat the same thing as Lyndo and I now…

The general plan is that he gets yogurt, fruit, and a generous helping of dinner leftovers.  Sometime I skip the fruit and give him another side, because right now his nap falls right over lunchtime, requiring a 1st and 2nd lunch, much like a hobbit.  Today’s eats:

This lovely concoction is leftover mash:  Mashed taters, peas, roasted broccoli, and baked cod.  Cod is hard to see – same color as the taters

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Second lunch: Egg, spinach, cheese, and beef scramble.  It actually started as a frittata.

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Finally, yogurt with berries and flax.  I made “vanilla” yogurt by mixing my homemade yogurt with vanilla and stevia.  You can see I didn’t have perfectly homogeneous mixing:

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All stacked up:

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Dinner was roasted sweet potato and broccoli, a ground turkey taco casserole, and chunks of mango for dessert.  No pictures, sorry…

But I can state with confidence that good food makes for a happy guy – and a happy mama:

A 30-minute meal

Tonight’s dinner was epic – it hit my “trifecta” of requirements – quick, tasty, healthy.  I’m a happy girl   Salt and vinegar mash is a HUGE favorite of mine – modified from a Rachel Ray recipe a few years back.  It makes my tongue happy, and is a healthier alternative to those wonderful chips…

Bacon-wrapped Cod with Salt and Vinegar Mash and Roasted Broccoli

Here is what you need:

2 cod fillets

4 strips bacon (preferable from your organic Iowa hog)

broccoli

olive oil

salt

4-5 medium taters

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 T butter

1 T sour cream (used lowfat – it is what we had)

Peas, if you wish

Here is the flow:

Preheat oven to 400

Get a saucepan of water boiling on the stove for the taters.

Chop your broccoli, toss with olive oil and a bit of salt, and throw in the oven to get roastin’

Wrap Cod in bacon – nice and tight, it shrinks as it cooks! and throw in the oven.

Wash and chop taters, throw in the boiling water.

(At this stage, I put the husband on “stir the broccoli, boil the peas, and watch the taters and cod duty and took Austin outside to play.  A beautiful day must not be wasted!)

When the taters are tender (after 20-ish minutes), drain, and mash with the vinegar, sour cream, and butter.  Salt to taste. Broccoli are done with florets start to crisp and brown slightly.  Fish is done when no longer translucent in the middle – I have no qualms about cutting it up to check because I have to cut it anyways for the wee one.

Serve it all up and enjoy!  Serves two hungry adults, and a wee one (with enough leftovers for the wee one’s lunch the next day).

P.S. – Austin LOVE broccoli like this – I had a hard time getting him to eat the rest of his dinner because he wanted to keep chowing down on the broccoli.  Such a problem to have!

Actually, he’ll eat any veggies when roasted with olive oil and a dash of salt.

Lentiladas

This was pretty much the perfect meal – very tasty, easy to make, cheap, healthy, and loved by all – meat-eating husband and 19 month old alike.  The penta-fecta! (just watch, soon everyone will be using that word…)

Lentil Enchiladas

1/2 cup green lentils

1 yellow onion, diced

1 clove garlic, mashed

olive oil

3 carrots, diced

2 T tomato paste

2 t cumin + 1 t (heaping)

1 t (heaping) paprika

water

salt

1 small can diced green chilis

sour cream, cream cheese, or cottage cheese – about 1/4 cup

tortillas

cheese to top

Boil lentils till tender, about 25 minutes.

In the meantime, saute onions, garlic, and carrots in olive oil (1-2 t) till starting to soften, ~5 minutes.  Add tomato paste, 2 t cumin, and paprika, stir to combine.  If you aren’t cooking for a wee one, add chili or cayenne if you wish!  Add about a cup of water, and let the mix simmer down.  If it starts to dry up, add more water to keep the mix saucy – I probably ended up adding 1 to 1.5 more cups of water.  Simmer about 20 minutes, until veggies are very soft.  Whir the mix in the food processor to make your enchilada sauce – taste test and add salt as you see fit.

Drain the lentils, and mix in a medium bowl with the green chilis, extra cumin, and your choice of sour cream, cream cheese, or cottage cheese (I used about 1 T cream cheese – using up the dregs taking up space in the fridge – and then threw in cottage cheese to make it creamy).

Pour some of the sauce down in a glass baking dish.  Spoon lentil mixture into tortillas, roll, and place seam-side down in your dish.  Slather with the rest of the sauce, top with cheese, and bake at 350 till cheese is melty.

We served them with chopped romaine, fresh guac, and sour cream.  Yummy!

These are even better leftover – if you can wait, cook them a day ahead and then reheat in the oven.  The lentils absorb the flavor and it becomes Mexican heaven!