Recipe Post: Slow Cooker Lentil Taco Filling/ Lentil Enchiladas

I follow several blogs and one my favorite blogs to follow is The Frugal Girl.  I first found her blog when I moved to the area where we currently live.  I found that we lived near an Aldi grocery store and I wanted to find some strategies for shopping at Aldi since it is kind of an unconventional grocery store. Also with our move to our new area, I was between jobs and my husband and I were trying to save money.  Finding The Frugal Girl blog was perfect for me at that juncture of my life because I did need to be frugal at that point.

Fast forward to my life now and while I no longer need to be as frugal as I did then; I still enjoy being frugal.  I like the idea of making decisions to live a more simple life in order to focus on the things that really matter to me.  I subscribe to The Frugal Girl and read her posts in my e-mail when I can. She has inspired me to make decisions to live a more simple life by choice.  Additionally,  she has inspired me to  write on my blog about my passions and interests.

In the spirit of simple living, I wanted to share with you two recipes that I made this week.

On Sunday, I made Lentil Tacos based on a recipe from  one of my favorite cookbooks*****

Dinner on a Dime 

I adapted the recipe [which was written to utilize 1 cup of dried lentils that are cooked on the stovetop] so I could make it in the slow cooker and utilize the entire 16 oz bag of Lentils.

Lentil Taco Filling Slow Cooker Style

16 oz Bag of Lentils (Goya)

2 Onions Chopped small

1 Tablespoon minced garlic

2 Tablespoon Chili powder

2 teaspoons Cumin

2 teaspoons Oregano

Dash of Red Pepper

2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

2 ½ cups of chicken broth or less (this is a work in progress)

1 1/2 Cups of Green Verde salsa or any salsa you have on hand

1 Small piece of Kombu (dried seaweed that acts as a digestive aid if desired, only add a small piece, it expands while cooking)

 

Directions:

1)      I rinsed and soaked the lentils for about an hour or two while I did other things around the house. Then I dumped out the water and put the lentils in the slow cooker.

2)      I put the chopped onions, vegetable oil, garlic, chili powder, Cumin, oregano in a glass bowl and microwaved them for 5 minutes as a sort of make-shift sweating of the aromatics.  Then I put them into the slow cooker.

3)      I added a small piece of kombu which is a dried seaweed that does not add any flavor (you remove the kombu when the lentils are done cooking) but it will make your lentils more digestible and hugely cut down on flatulence.

4)      I set the slow cooker on high and cooked the lentils for 4 hours.

4.5) I removed the kombu after the lentil were cooked.

5)      After 4 hours I removed the excess liquid in the slow cooker  [in the future I will just add less water]. I added the 1.5 cups of salsa and I let it cook an additional 10 minutes then served the lentils with tortillas, cheese, sour cream, and brown rice.

Lentil Enchiladas

On Tuesday night I made 1 cup of dried brown rice [which turned into 3 cups of cooked brown rice].  I then mixed 2 cups of the cooked brown rice with several cups of the lentil taco filling.  I added a handful of shredded cheddar cheese and mixed it together.  Then I opened can of enchiladas sauce and coated the bottom of a 13×9 inch pan with sauce as a well as a 8×8 pan with sauce.  I made 11 lentil enchiladas between the 2 pans and topped them both with red enchilada sauce and a handful of shredded cheese.  I baked the at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

The enchiladas were good the first night but the flavor and texture improved when I ate them for lunch the next day.

Since the lentil enchiladas were kind of a cooking experiment, I decided to make some simple children enchiladas to go with them in case they did not turn out.  I asked my husband to stop at the store on the way home from work and bring home a rotisserie chicken.  I made a chicken enchilada from the chicken, salsa verde, cheese, a dash of chili powder, cumin, and lime juice.  I topped them with salsa verde and cheese.

I baked both types of enchiladas separately since my oven is only so big.  They were baked at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes.

It was only as an afterthought that I decided to photograph the chicken enchiladas so we already put some of them on our plates when this picture was taken.

I like experimenting with food and I find myself making my own tweaks to recipes I have used for sometime lately.

What have you been making for dinner this week?  I would love to hear.

Answer in the comment section.

 

***This post contains affiliate links for Amazon, if you decide to click on the link and purchase anything from Amazon, I will receive a small portion of the profits

 

 

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