Hello, my name is Jhames

This year Vegan MoFo III is being hosted by Kittee. If you’re on Twitter, use #veganmofo to participate in the month-long fest.

I am not a huge fan of vegan recipes that seek to recreate comfort food or simulate staples in the American diet. To me, being veg*n means celebrating the awe-inspiring flavor of fruits & vegetables. No matter how many nut butters, lemon juice, tofu and nutritional yeast you blend in a food processor, you will not achieve cheese. For all the effort put into recreating cheese for a recipe, why even mess with veganizing a dish when so many meals are already vegan?

Like a lentil salad with niçoise olives and sundried tomatoes!

Lentils don’t receive nearly as much praise as beans and legumes: lentils are a great source of protein, iron and dietary fiber with a minimal amount of sugar and fat content. Spice them up, simmer them down, even whip them into a crème! Best of all, lentils are relatively inexpensive and easy to prepare.

This salad features two different types of lentils and tastes great cold. Make sure you use Le Puy lentils and niçoise olives for this dish. I know a lot of veg*ns like to substitute ingredients in recipes but you can’t replicate the flavor of either ingredient with a different lentil or olive.

Ingredients

• 1 cup green lentils du Puy, rinsed and sorted
• ½ red lentils, rinsed and sorted
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• juice of ½ lemon (preferably Meyer)
• 12 sundried tomatoes, thinly sliced
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced
• ½ cup niçoise olives, pitted and sliced
• 1 tsp salt
• Black pepper

Directions

1. In a medium-sized stockpot add 4 cups cold water to Le Puy lentils
2. Bring to a boil, reduce heat slightly and cook lentils for 16 minutes
3. Add red lentils and cook for another 8 minutes
4. Drain water from lentils and place them in a medium-size bowl
5. Add olive oil, lemon juice, sundried tomatoes, green onions, niçoise olives and salt to lentils
6. Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper

Tips

• It is important to rinse dry lentils under cold water: you want to make sure you rinse away any residue and that you are not accidentally cooking small stones or debris in the stockpot.
• Oil-packed sundried tomatoes are fine to use for this recipe.
• If you don’t want to waste that Meyer lemon by only serving its juice, wash the lemon with a produce rinse, slice thinly, and caramelize in a pan with a bit of olive oil. Add the caramelized lemon slices to the salad in place of the lemon juice.

I use way more sundried tomatoes and niçoise olives for this recipe, you cannot go wrong with doubling the amounts for this dish.