I've only heard of lentils in passing. Before yesterday, I don't think I've ever actually noticed them sitting on a grocery shelf. Once in a great while I'll see someone mention them, usually something like "when I was in college, I lived on lentil soup" and I believed that they were a type of noodle, similar to ramen. Despite the occasional off-hand comment, I never put much stock in anyone ever eating these voluntarily. However, I was doing some grocery shopping in the Dollar General (or the "DG" as we call it around here) and saw a bag of them next to the dried beans - $1/lb. I figured "why not" and picked up a bag. They are not noodles of course, but look more like dried peas. Like rice, these things take a 2:1 (water:product) ratio (or higher) and will swell up to aroundt 3 times their size. So a 1lb bag should come out to around 3-4 lbs cooked.
The bag had instructions on making some monster soup including 40 different vegetables and seasonings, but I wanted to try something much simpler that didn't involve a trip out again. Searching the Internet, I discovered that these things were incredibly bland and you used them as a base for some other kind of soup. I finally found a recipe on about.com that stayed fairly basic. I did 2 cups of water to 1 cup of lentils and boiled away. I added some salt-free garlic+herb, as well as some Italian seasoning, some salt, and some ground peppercorn. After cooking about 10 minutes, it became apparent that I needed to add another cup of water, so in this case it was 3:1. Unlike rice, you can apparently open the lid and stir these as you cook. With rice, if you mess up your water:rice ratio or open the lid, your rice is ruined.
After 20 minutes, they were much more tender, but even with my seasoning, very bland. I added some tuna fish which did just about nothing for the flavor. Finally, I added a can of diced tomatoes and simmered them for another 5 minutes or so. This plus some more peppercorn did the trick. I had probably 2+ lbs of something that tasted incredibly good. I figure the tomatoes were $1/can and I used just under half a bag of lentils (1 cup), so add $0.50 and I have several meals here. The tuna did nothing either way, so I'll leave that out next time. I'll just guestimate and say I used $0.10 in seasoning (though it probably works out to much less if I buy in bulk). I believe this 2-3 day supply of food could be had for < $2.
John Tomatoe Lentil Soup Recipe #1
- 1 cup washed lentils (wash in cold water)
- 3 cups water
- 1 can (1.5 cups) petite diced tomatoes or similar
- Ground peppercorn and other seasonings as desired
- Boil lentils and water together
- Reduce heat, add some seasoning - this will get the seasoning into the lentils
- Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until tender -- feel free to taste test as needed
- Add tomatoes and simmer for another 5 minutes
- Add more seasoning as needed
The Internet recommends adding salt in towards the end as salt will harden the lentils, causing them to take longer to cook.
Dried lentils can apparently be stored indefinitely in an airtight container in a dry environment, as can canned tomatoes. If you are preparing for some sort of post apacolyptic scenario, you wouldn't be too bad off to store this stuff in bulk, assuming you can find a way to boil water in your underground bunker.
Lentils of Yore