Lentils? For Winter?

groundbreaking.

Lentils are the puffer jacket and wool socks of foods - it’s hard to get excited about putting them on for the millionth time, but they’ll keep you warm and cozy when the wind is blowing and it feels like Spring might decide to just not come this year.

They are quick cooking and nourishing, soft and creamy, and easy to dress up in lots of different ways. I tend to go with lots of root vegetables like earthy sweet potatoes and carrots and some green veg, for health. In this batch, I also added lots of chopped shallots and a bit of cumin and coriander to round out the flavor. The kale at the end maybe feels a little obligatory, but it adds another layer of texture and some much needed color…and fiber and vitamins and all of that stuff. Add as much stock as you like to make this more stewy or soupy. As written this is somewhere in between, what Rachael Ray may have referred to as Stoup.

Add some red pepper flakes or smoked paprika. Top a bowl with a jammy egg. Top a bowl of brown rice with a scoop of lentils. Scoop them up with some toasted pita or naan. Roast some bone-in chicken pieces and pour the juices on top of the lentils. You get where I am going, they can be jazzed up in a bunch of ways. One of my fave ways is a punchy condiment like gremolata.

Gremolata is an Italian condiment made from finely chopped parsley, garlic, and lemon zest. You can use it to liven up a bowl of pasta or veggies and it’s great on a grilled steak or braised meat or buttery toasted bread or anything else that could use a little something.

This non-traditional version skips the garlic and adds a handful of finely chopped pistachios making it something kind of in between pesto and gremolata. Either way it’s a bright and zingy condiment that adds a little oomph to an otherwise brown meal. I had a pistachio version like this on top of roasted beets in a restaurant ages ago and it has stuck in my mind for years. If you have any extra, I highly recommend topping a pile of roasted beets dressed in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and salt with a big scoop.

I aspire to be a person who saves veggie scraps and chicken bones to make my own stock, but I am not. I came to terms with this fact about myself years ago, so if you need it, here is permission to not make your own stock too. I do not have a freezer large enough to accommodate the scraps or the finished stock, and one of my least favorite kitchen tasks is dealing with all of the spent scraps and bones when the stock is done.

So, I usually turn to a scoop of my bff Better than Boullion and plain old water. Julia Turshen, home cook extraordinaire and many time cookbook author, is also a big fan of BtB and writes about lots of great ways to use it in her new book What Goes with What. It is my secret weapon for building flavor fast and it takes up very little space unlike cartons or cans of stock. You can even buy a big tub of it at Costco. Just know that if I call for stock in a recipe, I’m using water and BtB to make it.