Posts Tagged ‘Lentils’
I’ve been reading a lot about the credit crunch at the minute and how it all seems to be most impacting on our food budgets.
The most alarming part so far is the dramatic increase in tinned foods (like tinned chopped pork) which has increased by 7.2%. Urgh! I can barely eat tinned potatoes let alone pork. I would also presume tinned pork has all the scraps of meat in there as well (just think spam)?
However, this has caused a huge spike in the sale of pulses after years of standing still. If you’ve read the previous posts in this blog, you will see that personal experience of cooking with pulses has always gone drastically wrong! So, pulses will be the next recipe podcast on the website as I’m determined to conquer the lentils! Thanks also to those who commented on great lentil ideas.
It’s also becoming apparent that more and more people are turning to cheaper supermarkets. A crazy 31% increase in sales has been reported by budget supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi. And, to be honest, if you shop smart in these places, your onto a winner.
Stay tuned to find out how the budget recipe podcast made of lentils goes!
So, after buying some pulses (you may want to read the previous blog post), I cook the other bag. I simmer over night, boil the next day for 15 minutes then leave to simmer for 2 hours. I get on with my day to day tasks when the next thing I notice is the burning smell of pulses! That’s right, I totally forgot about the simmering hamster food and the water had totally evaporated. I wasn’t best pleased considering how much effort this was turning out to be. So, I repeat the process and simmer a new batch the next day.
Considering my previous experiences, I made a really tasty sauce to mix with the pulses:
- Tomatoes
- Olive Oil
- White Wine Vinegar
- Garlic
- S&P
- Loads of herbage
I mix the pulses with the sauce and leave it over night. The next day, I take the concoction into work and have it for my lunch (after bragging about it to my peers). Lunch time came and I eat! The sauce was very tasty, but every time I ate a pulse, it was still total blandness. It was still edible though. I finish my lunch and consider how much effort the whole thing had been!
The day goes on when I notice some peculiar noises emanating from my stomach! And then, the worst case of wind I have ever had! It lasted at least 24 hours with countless trips to the toilet throughout the day!
All in all, my Pulses experience has not been great but I’m willing to persevere! Apparently you become accustom to them. We will see and I will keep you posted!
Wish me luck!
I often get snack attacks, even straight after eating. I always eat fruit etc when this happens but thought I would experiment the other day!
Before I play the pulses down, I think I should just mention that after looking at the nutritional content, these bad boys do contain a tonne of good things for you. Maybe they come under the ‘super foods’ class (I’m not sure)!?!? This is why I wanted them (of course!). They contain loads for protein, carbohydrate and fibre (all the good sorts) and are low in fat. A good all rounder snack food, unlike fruit which is mostly carbs.
I read on, to prepare one of the bags of pulses, you must soak them overnight in water, boil for 10 minutes then simmer for 1 hour, and for the other pack, you have to simmer for 2 hours! Blimey I thought, I wasn’t quiet sure what I had signed up for! So I prepared the 1 hour pulses the next day (after soaking over night) and boil/simmer for 1 hour. I assume they would make good snack food ‘as they are’ so put them in a tub and take them to work with me.
I got to work raving about them and everyone’s face explained just how unappetising they looked! So I began to munch the now soft pulses and was, to be honest, very disappointed. I continued to eat them and had to stop before I was physically sick!
