Small Bowl #15

 

Sometimes, instead of making a protein and a veggie and a starch, I just make dishes that combine all the things. So here we have lentils cooked with dried apricots and carrots, topped with some plain non-dairy yogurt (recipe from The Mom 100), some arugula and onion chickpea flour pakoras that are partially improvisational (inspired by But First Chai's recipe), and curried basmati rice with carrots and peas (recipe from LunaRecipe).

I was intrigued by the lentils, because I love apricots in all forms. They did not disappoint! The dried apricots softened perfectly in this and I would definitely make it again. I might want to cut the carrots differently--diced makes more sense to me than sliced here--and maybe have a higher quantity of lentils, but there is very little I would want to change and it's truly delicious as is. The yogurt really adds a lot, too. It's an unusual dish, but quite pleasing!

The pakoras were mostly made to use the arugula I had, but they were also delicious. I had a hard time restraining myself from eating the whole batch in one sitting. Because they incorporated a bit of brown rice flour, they were part of my pantry utilization quest, too! And I have so much chickpea flour that even though it is a staple, I really need to be using it more. Fortunately, I adore chickpea flour.

The rice was nothing all that special. It needed more salt, I think, and didn't have quite enough liquid. I also think the carrots should go in with the onions instead of with the peas. But it was fine as a side for this meal.

Sometimes, things work!