Experimenting on My Hubby

Don’t tell the UN Commission On Human Rights, but I have been performing unauthorized scientific experiments on my unsuspecting husband.

The dastardly medium of my treachery? Lentils. Here’s my jar of the little suckers.  They look harmless enough, don’t they.

A while back I wrote a post about how my husband proposed that we go to a half-pound of ground turkey for our weekly barbecue.  Yay! I was happy about this.  That move cuts our bbq costs almost in half.

But I’m always wanting to constantly push the Frugal envelope.  So I thought I’d try this: substitute lentils in place of ground meat in recipes.

I like this idea, because it means I don’t have to go to any special effort to seek out exotic and delicious lentil recipes.  I just keep on cooking the way I always do, only using more (cheap) lentils, and less (expensive) ground turkey.

No, I haven’t gotten around to lentil burgers yet.  But it sure looks like things are headed in that direction.

First off I made slow-cooker sloppy joes, but with lentils instead of ground turkey.  First I cooked the lentils on the stove top, following the package instructions.  That was very easy. (I had quite a bit, so I froze the remainders in one cup portions.  Easy and convenient).

Then I put the lentils in the slow-cooker, along with homemade sloppy joe sauce.  I let that cook all day, and served it on top of Texas Toast, instead of regular hamburger buns. That gives my sloppy joes their extra-special little kick.

Well, guess what? Lentils taste exactly like ground meat!

No, not really.

But actually, it was pretty good.  My husband, the he-man carnivore, actually liked it.  He said he would eat it again.

Next I made slow-cooker chili (that was on Bean-O-Rama day, when I had all those freshly-cooked beans hanging around).  Here I did use ground turkey, but only half as much as usual, and then made up the difference in lentils.  What? Yes, delicious.

Last night I made spaghetti.  When I made the chili, I had cooked a whole pound of ground turkey meat, but only used 1/2 a pound.  So I froze the 1/2 I didn’t use. That was REALLY easy - I took that plus a baggie of frozen lentils out of the freezer early in the  day, defrosted them, and added that to my homemade spaghetti sauce.  Yum.

Now, I think that lentils aren’t for everyone.  They are very mild, though,  so even though it’s true they may have something of the “acquired taste” about them, they are pretty easy to get used to.

I will continue to experiment, until I reach that “No Way, Jose, I’m not eating that!” point.  It’s worth it, because lentils are cheap, and meat is expensive.  Plus, they are very good for you.  But I can see resistance of lentils comes more from the idea of them (as a meat sub) rather than the reality.  They really are a very unprepossesing legume.  But I love humble things, so I will stick by them.  On to Lentil Loaf!