Of Lentils, Leftovers, and My Loathing for Celery

They say never to go grocery shopping hungry. This is doubly important when you're me. I'm a little...impulsive.

I went with a list and everything! I was going to make a Moroccan lentil stew, for which I needed just about all the constituent elements (celery, carrots, lentils, chicken stock, wine, mushrooms). The problem is, being hungry (even for Hungry Sam) I decided to multiply the recipe a few times without REALLY paying attention to, you know, the volume of the finished product.

Which means in addition to making too much (frozen for future meals of course) I also have SO MANY LENTILS left. I tried to find a photograph that would communicate the sheer quantity of lentils I have remaining, but all I could find was this tasteful picture of an Italian Lentil farm. Enjoy:

I also have so much celery. What the hell am I going to do with celery? I hate celery. Any food that cannot sustain you AND gets stuck in your teeth should just go extinct already. I suppose ants-on-a-log are an option, but still. GOD.

For my stew, I used this recipe for inspiration, but I departed from it in three significant ways:

1. Cannellini beans are boring! Go with Garbanzo, Kidney, and Butter beans -- they absorb tons of flavor.
2. The spices, as someone mentioned in the comments, aren't very Moroccan. I went with cumin, turmeric, and cinnamon.
3. THIS IS KEY: instead of cooking the lentils in water, I used equal parts chicken broth and red wine. I don't know why I did this; it was incredible. (VEGGIES -- use vegetable broth)

The celery just sort of melted into the base; I'm never cooking with celery ever again. Forget that. I loved the richness of the mushrooms with the buttery, cinnamony lentils and the diced tomato, which added just the right level of savory tang. I'm always suprised that more people don't cook with cinnamon as a savory spice -- it always seems to lend a sharp, earthy flavor, one reminiscent of sweetness without being itself sweet.

Recipe's a keeper, though I will say it did not keep as well as I would have hoped and I ended up having to throw some out. Bah. Overall though, and despite the several hiccups in the process, a great cooking experience and one I would recommend.