Lentil Tacos

(Originally posted by Brandi)

Here’s a recipe that might help get those 5 veggie servings in!  We eat tacos a lot around here.  Either in a whole wheat flour tortilla or in what I call “taco bowls” which is where you just eat all of the taco fillings (meat, cheese, sour cream, salsa, lettuce, tomato, chopped onion, avocado, etc.) in a bowl.

Anyway, I began experimenting with lentils to stretch my budget and was pleasantly surprised with the results.  A 1 pound bag of lentils costs 57c at Wal-Mart and makes about 6-7 cups cooked, I believe. That is 9.5c per cup at most.  Plus they are really good for you!  For about 20c, I almost double my taco meat my adding lentils to it and it is healthy too!  Here’s what I do:

Wash, and pick over 1 cup of lentils.  Combine in saucepan–lentils, 2 cups water, 1/2 onion, finely chopped, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, 1/4 tsp. cumin, pinch black pepper, cayenne powder to taste of you like “kick.” Bring to a boil and simmer about 30 minutes or until tender and most liquid is absorbed.
This will make taco-like lentils.  You could eat them as is, but my guys are not ready for that  so I cook 1 pound 90% lean ground beef with the other 1/2 chopped onion and the same seasonings and then drain.  Then I stir in the cooked lentils and voila!

The seasoning mixture is basically a taco seasoning mix that I made up..I just have found that it works great with lentils too. You could use any taco seasoning.

And here’s something else.  I had some taco-seasoned lentils left over one day.  I decided to experiment and add them to some scrambled eggs.  My kids kinda turned their noses up at them when I told them what was in the eggs, but after one bite, they were shoveling it in  It really tasted like sausage and eggs.  I can’t wait to try it again! So tonight when I made the lentils for the tacos, I purposely made extra for eggs next week.