cooking corner: lentil pasta

i've never cooked lentils before...until today.

i have a new housemate who just moved in at the end of last week and she graciously cooked dinner for me yesterday, so i decided to return the favour and cook dinner for the two of us tonight. since she doesn't eat meat, i was originally going to make monterey beans and cheese, but when i went to my cupboard i realized i had no beans. nor did i have enough rice for the both of us.

what a fail.

anyway, i discovered a can of lentils i bought because i wanted to try my hand at cooking them and i decided that tonight would be the night. i looked up a recipe for lentil pasta online (since i happened to have pasta in my cupboard) and then i looked for the one that would be the easiest and most time efficient to cook. :P i eventually found one that matched my criteria although i modified it slightly since i didn't have all the ingredients and i was too lazy to go to the store, haha.

i started by chopping up an onion and tossing it into a small pot with extra virgin olive oil. then i added some dried sage and salt (no pepper because i didn't have any, oops) and then a can of tomatoes once the onions were browned. i then brought everything to a boil and then turned down the heat so it would simmer for about 20-30 mins. at some point during this time i opened my can of lentils and rinsed them out. once i decided the tomatoes were ready, i added the lentils to the little pot and let that cook for another few minutes. i then added the little pot to a bigger pot, which held pasta i had cooked while my tomatoes and lentils were cooking, and mixed everything together before serving.

i wasn't sure how it would turn out since i was missing some ingredients and since tonight was the first time cooking lentils. fortunately it was a success and actually quite good if i dare say so myself, haha. and it was so easy to make! yes, i think i'll have to try this recipe again sometime. :)