Spaghetti With Lentils

We did indeed end up having spaghetti with lentils last night. However, I modified the recipe from the USDA website (read more about the site on yesterday's post, if you want to) a little, based upon what I had lying around in the kitchen.


First, here's the recipe from the USDA website:

Lentil Spaghetti Sauce

Serving Size: 1 cup
Yield: 6 servings
-1 pound ground beef
-1 cup chopped onion
-1 crushed garlic clove or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
-1 1/2 cups cooked, drained lentils
-1 jar (28 to 32 ounce) spaghetti sauce

1. In a large sauce pan brown meat. Drain.
2. Add onion and garlic to drained meat. Cook until onions are soft but not brown.
3. Add cooked lentils and spaghetti sauce and bring to a boil. Lower heat and cook gently for 15 minutes.
4. Serve sauce over hot cooked spaghetti noodles.

Cost: Per Recipe: $ 8.10; Per Serving: $ 1.35
Source: Adapted from Montana Extension Nutrition Education Program Website Recipes Montana State University Extension Service

And then they give you the nutrition facts! (right)

The original recipe is a little high in sodium for my taste, but I cut back on that by using no-salt-added canned diced tomatoes, and some leftover tomato sauce and tomato paste, instead of a premade jarred or canned spaghetti sauce.



Here's what I did instead of following the recipe exactly. In my case, my modifications actually saved money, since I had extra tomato sauce and paste sitting around in the freezer, but did not have any premade spaghetti sauce or ground beef. So, this is not supposed to be a recipe "makeover" by any means, because I've made the recipe the original way and it's very tasty. I just thought I would follow the spirit of the recipe by using what's most readily available to me.

New Ingredients:
- about 3 cups cooked lentils, mostly regular brown lentils, but 1/4 cup of baby red lentils thrown in as well. I'm not sure how much they were before they were cooked. 1 1/2 cups, maybe?
-1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup chopped onion (about 1/2 of a large onion)
-3 garlic cloves, minced
-1/2 teaspoon thyme
-1 bay leaf
-1 can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, mostly drained
-about 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (or if you don't have it, just don't drain the diced tomatoes)
-about 1.5 tablespoons tomato paste (if you don't have it, use less liquid and switch heat to low as soon as the sauce gets chunky enough to spoon over pasta)
-3/4 cup red wine (totally optional. I have a 3-liter box of good red wine (really!) sitting in my fridge right now, and since the lack of air exposure in the box means I can actually use the whole thing before it turns, this means that adding the wine to the lentils cost me $1.04 [really - I calculated it]. Unnecessary, but cheaper than the ground beef would have been, and this is why I have the wine, anyway).

1. Cover the lentils with a bunch of water in a medium saucepan. Bring to an almost-boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover.
2. Put on water to boil in a separate pot for spaghetti noodles.
3. Once the lentils have had 10 or 15 minutes of simmering, heat the olive oil on medium in a Dutch oven or pot big enough to hold six cups of spaghetti sauce. When oil heats up, sautee onions until they soften. Add minced or pressed garlic and cook for a minute. Add diced tomatoes, whatever tomato liquid you are using (but not tomato paste), thyme, bay leaf, and wine. Bring to an almost-boil, reduce to a simmer, and cover [note: if you used a non-non-stick pan and little brown bits of onion and garlic are stuck to the bottom, you might as well add the wine first and have it help you scrape the brown bits back into the mixture].
4. When lentils seem like they are done, drain (if there's any water left over) and add to the tomato sauce. If your spaghetti noodles are still cooking, keep the sauce simmering and stir in the tomato paste when the noodles still have a few minutes left.
5. Taste sauce for salt and pepper (I added a fair amount of both), spoon over drained spaghetti noodles, and serve!

Not overly photogenic, but tasty as all get-out!