Here’s another one of our favorite vegetarian recipes (and why I’m posting them is here). For this recipe, it’s important that you use red (or yellow) lentils rather than brown or green lentils because the red ones will fall apart (which is what you want).

Red Lentil Coconut Curry
adapted from Simply In Season
serves 4-5

1 C dried red lentils (rinsed)
2 ½ C water

In a small saucepan, cook for 15 minutes or until tender and falling apart

While lentils are cooking:

1 medium onion, chopped
½  T oil (coconut or olive are both good)

In a large pan, sauté in over medium heat until softened.

½ T minced garlic
½ T peeled and minced fresh ginger root
1 T curry powder (or use less if you don’t want it to be so spicy)
¼ tsp each turmeric, cumin, black pepper
1/8 tsp ground red pepper
¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Add and reduce heat.  Cook and stir constantly until very fragrant, about 3 minutes.

1 C coconut milk (or just use the whole can)
¼ C soy sauce
½ C tomato sauce or chopped tomatoes with their juices

Add and simmer on low heat for 10ish minutes, stirring occasionally.

½ of a medium head of cauliflower (cut into bite-size chunks)
1 medium sweet potato (cut into bite-size chunks)
¼ head cabbage (cut up in bite-sized pieces)
cooked lentils, with any remaining liquid

Add and cook until tender.  (Alternately, you can use basically any vegetables you want to.)

1-2 C peas (optional)
Add to pot and simmer until just heated through.  Add more soy sauce as needed for salt.

Serve over brown rice with plain yogurt.

(This recipe is actually a bit spicy so we do usually stir in some yogurt at the end.  So you may want to eliminate the ground red pepper and cut down on the curry powder if you don’t love spicy food and don’t want to use the yogurt.)