One thing we eat a ton of are pulses. Pulses are the best- high protein, high fiber, low fat, cheap and taste good. The perfect food, for us.
We have a little too many dry lentils in the pantry, so I played around with them and came up with a lentil base for ‘meatballs’. Take this base and add your favorite meatball add-ins to it, and enjoy!
It’s simple, hands-off, and easy. We use it a lot, because the leftovers are an asked for lunch – they go great in wraps.
Lentil Ball Base:
Serves four for dinner
1 cup dry lentils (about ½ a pound)
2+ cups water
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
1 chopped carrot
Put all ingredients in a pot and simmer covered about 30 minutes. Add water during cooking if they threaten to dry out.
this is all it is. Plus water
Strain them when they are done and allow to cool.
Done. You can mush the lentils on the side of the pot with a spoon.
Add
About ½ cup bread crumbs (you want the mix to stick together, so add ins can be gooey)
with bread crumbs mixed in
Whatever flavors you want
Form into balls I get 24-28 golf ball sized ones.
Bake at 350F sprayed with oil for about 30 minutes, turning once.
After they are baked, they can be reheated slowly in a sauce *gently* without falling apart.
That’s it.
Cheap, healthy, vegan, free of most allergens, and infinitely adaptable.
The other day I was talking with a friend and she mentioned needing a machine to make Italian Ice (Granita). You don’t.
You need nothing special to make a good, old fashioned Granita (which sounds so fancy and Sicilian). They were made by resourceful people with little work with. You can do it in your kitchen.
It’s hot here, and we’re still in quarantine, so I threw together a peach granita last night. I started it about 2:30, and it was ready by 7. You need a metal pan, and a fork.
I will walk you through the way I made this one, which is the way I make watermelon and kiwi granitas as well. I will also give recipes for lemon and coffee granitas, because who doesn’t want one of those? And a pro tip that will make them ‘better’.
So, I used an old metal loaf pan. A different sized pan would have different freezing times, otherwise, whatever you have works. And a metal fork.
For this one, I made peach. I drained a jar of home canned peaches and tossed them in the food processor. I was tempted to add some mint, but decided to skip it this time. I added some lemon juice, because it was a bit sweet to me. For this, I added no sugar, because they had been canned in syrup. I put it in the pan and put it in the freezer.
Pre freezing
Every 20 -30 minutes, take the fork and scrape around the edges, where ice is forming. You can see it on the sides here, at the ~40 minute mark.
Over the next few hours, I tried to scrape it down at least 2 times. if you forget and it turns solid, it’s completely salvageable- just re melt it. The next few pictures show the progression from liquid, to slush to ice.
And that is literally it. Keep breaking it up so large ice crystals don’t form. Use any fruit you want for this. Taste it to make sure it’s what you want form the finished product, and cool off. 🙂 Note Bene: there are NO stabilizers in this. It will melt FAST.
Now, coffee (my mom’s favorite) and lemon (my favorite) are a little different, but no harder. Same technique, but with an actual ‘recipie’.
For coffee, take 2 cups of leftover coffee. (If it’s not strong, use 3 😉 ). Mix with 2 cups of water (or 1, depending on the coffee), and 3/4 cups of sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, pour it into your pan and stir every 20 minutes.
Lemon is 2 cups water, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 3/4 cups sugar. Exactly the same for the rest of it.
Making it ‘fancy’ (which will also reduce the speed it melts at) is simple. Whip 1 egg white (I use pasteurized dry egg whites, because I am paranoid. if you aren’t, you do you. ) with 3T sugar until stiff, and add it into the base when the base is almost but not quite frozen. That’s ‘Roman style’, and gets you the creamy, professional bakery-style I grew up with.
That’s it. It’s that simple. A few ingredients, a pan, a fork. And you can have authentic ices of any flavor you want all summer. I know I will. There are a collection of Italian frozen desserts that don’t need special equipment. If you want more of them, just let me know. I doubt my family will mind testing them. 🙂
