Low Bowl #29

 

A meal inspired by Korean flavors: Brown rice, sweet Korean lentils (recipe from It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken), gochujang mushrooms (recipe from Budget Bytes), Korean carrot salad (recipe from Lavender and Macarons), and edamame cucumber salad (recipe from Nutrition to Fit).

Although I chose these items in part just to use the stuff I had around--the cucumbers and mushrooms needed using, plus some cilantro, and the mukimame (i.e., shelled edamame) had been in my freezer possibly a bit too long--this was still amazing. I've never thought to try to make red lentils in an Asian-flavored way, but these lentils were delicious. I wished they were a bit darker in color, but you can't have everything, and the mushrooms contributed that rich brown to this meal anyway. The salads were perfect, too--delicious and colorful.

Initially, when I planned to make this, I was going to have some marmalade tofu instead of the lentils, but when the time came I was pretty tired and wasn't in the mood for doing much more than dumping stuff in a pot and stirring it occasionally. Lentils were a great solution to that! (If you're wondering how I made the other stuff feeling that way, well, the carrot salad was made ahead that morning, and I didn't mind making the cucumber salad because I didn't have to cook anything. Both the lentils and the mushrooms are made with very minimal attention. The rice, of course, is always easy--I make it in a rice cooker, so the hardest part is remembering to start it early enough.)

Although I'm buying a lot less these days, I did buy brown rice, as I had indicated I probably would. That "premium" brown rice truly is so much better than any other brown rice I've ever had, and getting me to eat brown rice over white makes it worth the cost to me. Plus, if we're eating peasant food, like rice and lentils, we can afford to splurge on making sure they're the good versions of those things.

I tagged this gluten free because it is if you use gluten-free soy sauce; please check the label on yours if you need to make a gluten free meal.