Love the Lentils

Green Lentils

 

Favorite Middle Eastern Lentils

 

8 ounces of green lentils

½ white onion, minced

3 whole carrots, chopped

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp. cumin (and more to taste)

2 tsp. salt (and more to taste)

1 tbsp. pepper (and more to taste)

Plain yogurt

 

Rinse lentils, then add to large pot. Cover lentils with water and turn heat to high.  Add carrots, onion and garlic to pot. Then add cumin, salt and pepper. Once the water boils, turn down the heat to simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the lentils and carrots are tender, stirring occasionally. Add more salt, pepper and cumin to taste.

 

If the lentils are not soft after 30 minutes, add more water and let it cook until soft.

 

Serve with yogurt.

 

 

We’ve stopped buying any kind of crunchy, salty snacks, also known as “cupboard crack” because neither of us has the self control to not eat an entire bag while watching Brian Williams. We also completely avoid the entire aisle that has sugary snacks at the store, to avoid being tempted by nutter butters and oatmeal pies. The lentil recipe above has become a staple in our weekly meal plan.

 

After eating healthier, avoiding going out to eat and really sticking to our eating plan, we’ve both been mocked on a daily basis by our bathroom scale. It literally taunts me by showing my goal weight, then showing an error, and once I step off and get back on, shows my actual weight. It’s quite bad for my mental health. I step on, my eyes light up as I see my goal, then my hopes are crashed as the evil little machine forged in the depths of hell laughs in my face and “Erroor”’s out on me.

 

It also doesn’t help when the person across from my desk at work brings in some kind of unhealthy food twice a week. Friday, it was a giant barrel full of cheese balls. Today, it was a Tupperware full of red velvet cupcakes. Normally, I don’t have a problem ignoring treats at work. But when you’ve got a trail of people popping over every half hour, talking about how good they are, and how they “Just need one more!” while licking cream cheese frosting off their fingers, it becomes a bit much to handle.

How do I combat this, you ask? Unhealthy amounts of sugar free mints. I’m quite confident I’m ingesting the same level of mints they used to test on monkeys who then starting having seizures. 

 

But I didn’t eat a cupcake. Mission accomplished.