Tasty Tuesday!

Mom hasn't been eating very good lately and has been having issues so she decided to make this today. She hasn't made it in a long time but she loves it. I told her to that I needed to have an in-season vegetable dish to share with everyone today but she says she's in need of protein. She always wins.

You may remember that I did a Tasty Tuesday post back in April that featured lentils so I'm not going to reiterate the wonders of them here. That post also included an ingredient featured in today's recipe, onion, so please click here to read that post.

This is the easiest recipe ever that I bet I could even make it! Even though it was hot out today, we had the air conditioning on so having the oven on was not a big deal.

Oven-Baked Lentils and Rice with Herbs

366 Low-Fat Brand Name Recipes

Serves 8 as a side dish

3 cups vegetable broth

3/4 cup lentils, uncooked

3/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup brown rice, uncooked

1/4 cup white wine

1 teaspoon basil

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon thyme

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a 2 1/2-quart casserole, combine all ingredients. Cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours or until lentils are tender. Add more liquid if mixture becomes dry.

This little lady is THE casserole option in our house. Dad loves Le Creuset and bought this for himself but Mom always uses it for this recipe. This is not technically a casserole dish but a French Oven (Dutch Oven).

Like I said Mom used to make this recipe all the time so when she felt the need to make it today she had all the ingredients on hand. The only problem was that some of the ingredients were a little old like the lentils.

What's a few months, right? Mom hates throwing good food away and figures there must be some wiggle room in the shelf life. Hmmmm. I'm sure glad I'm not having any of this stuff. Let Mom be the "expired food" guinea pig.

The lentils barely fill the bottom but don't worry because this baby will be full by the time Mom puts everything in it.

Mom struggles with rice purchases. I know, how silly but she does. I did a post last year about her trip to Green Fest and how she bought some special rice which she liked but this isn't that rice. This is some other rice she had in the pantry that she needed to use up. There are a million choices when it comes to rice but organic is what we are using today.

Oh no! This stuff's expired too! What the heck is wrong with this woman? She either needs to do more cooking or more eating. Scratch that. She needs to use what she buys in a timely manner.

Rice on top of lentils. Easy peasy, don't you agree?

Can you read what this says on the back of the rice package? This innovative package saves 35,000 pounds of plastic from landfills. How cool is that? Just by changing the packaging, less waste is being created. This is just one of many things Lundberg Family Farms does right. They have been in business since 1937 and are dedicated to caring for the land responsibly as well as sustainably. They grow organic and eco-farmed rice in addition to participating in the Non-GMO Project which is a non-profit collaboration of manufacturers, retailers, processors, distributors, farmers,seed companies and consumers. Mom's rice is non-GMO as are most of their rices.

Ahhh, the onions. Mom put a few more onions in than the recipe called for. This dish is really starting to look yummy.

I told you Mom was using up ingredients for this recipe hence this funky wine. I'm sure there are better wines to use in this recipe and Mom is going to have to buy some. Mom and Dad drink wine occasionally but is drinking wine okay to cook with? I think so but the problem is that if you only need a little wine like in this recipe, what do you do with the rest? Duh! You drink it!

This is what it looks like when the broth and wine are added. It doesn't look very appetizing yet.

All the spices just get thrown on top. Pretty, huh?

And then mixed together. Much better. Put the lid and off to the oven it goes. Phew! Just in time too because I was getting very sleepy. I took a nap while this baked and Mom did laundry. Dad came home while it was baking and could smell it even before he opened the door. He doesn't eat this stuff mostly because Mom inhales it.

After 1 1/2 hours (which is a very short nap), Mom pulled the casserole dish out of the oven, lifted the top and took the picture that is at the top of this post. She usually eats this dish as a meal or with baked tofu so it doesn't last 8 meals in our house. It didn't get eaten tonight because Mom went out to dinner with friends so it will be her lunch tomorrow.

3/4 of a cup is only 135 calories but contains a whopping 8 grams of fiber and 7 grams of protein. And with only 2 grams of fat, this dish is great to eat at any time of the day. That is if you can get it away from Mom. Good luck with that.

I threw this picture in because this is how I spent yesterday evening - riding around the neighborhood in my buggy. I can walk a lot better than I could earlier this month but there's no way I could walk more then half a block so in the buggy I went so Mom could get some exercise after dinner. I still don't like my buggy but it beats walking.