There’s a few things in this! This was our final dinner with our friend Masudur the duder so everything gets put up.

1. Carrot Salad

Skin 3 or 4 carrots, and then continue to peel strips. I can’t keep peeling down, so when it gets thin - set the remaining carrot aside to be chopped up for other things. Dump salt and pepper on them. Cook some oil with mustard seeds or flax seeds or sesame seeds and pour it over the carrots and mix it up. Serve warm or chilled.

2. Red Lentil Dhal

3 cups water to 1 cup lentil. Boil water, add lentils, when lentils boil - turn down and cover and simmer until the lentils become a paste. While this is happening is when you would start cooking garlic and onion in a pan with curry, coriander, cumin, chili pepper, salt and pepper - but I can’t have garlic or onion so we skipped that. Also I can’t have tomato, which usually get added. Instead, we peeled a butternut squash & zucchini as well as cut up sweet red pepper & red bell pepper and cooked those in the oil with spices until they were soft. We also cut up some ginger root and added that in to cook the flavor out. When the lentil paste is ready you dump the extras in and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

Usually dhal is served over rice, but my stove is only so big and we had only so many pans and everyone thought it was enough food as it was.

3. Potatoes/Spinach

Peel potatoes (we used 6 small golden potatoes), cut into small chunks, boil. Cook spinach until soft. 

Dump into a pan together. Pour half a can of drained peas in as well as the carrot chunks left over from the carrot salad. Liberally add oregano. Add other spices like curry, cumin, and some chili powder. Cook around for a few minutes and you’re good.

Bag of lentils (16oz): $1.50-2
Bag of spinach (10-16oz): $1-2
Bag of carrots (10-16oz): $1-2
Bag of rice (32oz): $2.30-3.50

You can add in things like tomato, onions, garlic and it will be tasty but this is delicious as it is here. You will only use half the bag of lentils to make a 1 cup for the recipe. You can choose to use a half a bag of frozen veggies or a full bag, depending on what’s available to you; around where I am different stores have a 6oz variance. Or, you may choose to buy nonfrozen materials and prepare those accordingly. Overall, when I make this I have enough to eat myself, feed two friends dinner, and have left overs for a few meals. 

2 cups water per 1 cup rice; Generally 1-2 cups is good. Clearly, it’s not the full 32oz. The rice is optional. You can serve the lentils without it, alongside it, over it, or mixed with it. You combine them after each is individually done being prepared.

2 cups water per half cup lentils; make 1 cup of lentils with 4 cups water. Cook in a pot on medium until it comes to a boil, then cover and put on low heat for about 35 minutes. While this is happening, cook your spinach and carrots on the stove top or in the microwave in a casserole dish. When those two things are executed, dump the spinach and carrots into the pot of lentils and pour some cumin in for seasoning (1-2 tablespoons, or go wild). Cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.