sometimes my experiments in combining stuff end up actually tasty

[ratcreature]

My dinner tonight was a sweet and sour butternut squash, lentils, and apple combination that I served with baked sweet potato (regular potato would have worked as well), and I found the mix of sweet pumpkin and apples with the lentils quite pleasing.


To make one portion I took:
a pat of butter
a little chopped onion (about 1-2 Tbsp)
250g pre-roasted butternut squash
1/2 US cup of cooked brown lentils (I took about one German cup of 125ml)
1 apple, chopped
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
salt, allspice and cardamom for seasoning
50g cream cheese (creme fraiche or sour cream would have worked too, but I didn't have those)
1 sweet potato

I baked the butternut squash together with the sweet potato, though I started the squash a little earlier because it was quite large and I would need to take it out slightly before the sweet potato, and cooked the lentils while that was going on. (I only used part for my dinner today of either squash or lentils I cooked.)

Anyway once the squash and lentils are done, you just put the butter on medium heat and fry the onions until they are translucent but not browned, add the squash (chopped in to pieces, those fall apart a bit further), lentils, apple pieces and apple cider vinegar with a little bit of water (just so it won't stick to the bottom while it all combines), cover and simmer a bit on lower heat until the apple is softened, then add the salt, allspice and cardamom to taste (probably other autumn/pumpkin related spices would work though I decided against cinnamon because I couldn't really imagine cinnamony lentils). Finally you add the cream cheese/creme fraiche/sour cream to your mixture and serve it with your baked (sweet) potato.


It didn't look that attractive because it is more or less a mush, but I liked the taste combination.

Comments

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

sounds nice. I make a roasted squash (acorn, butternut or munchkin), parmesan and quinoa with fried garlic and onions that is similarly gloopy but very.very.tasty.

[ratcreature]

Since I mostly eat alone, I rarely bother with presentation aspects of food anyway, except that I often like having vegetables of different colors. More often than not I end up eatingeating soup or stew of some kind or another, because it reduces the number of pots, and I can reheat the leftovers easily.

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

also results in the least amount of washing up!

[ratcreature]

True. It's kind of funny, when I first moved out from my parents I used to cook much more elaborately, even just for myself. Following stuff from cookbooks and bothering with fiddly stuff, but over the years my cooking has gotten much more simplified and lazy. I mean, still real food with fresh ingredients and mostly cooked from scratch, but I guess at some point the novelty of having my own kitchen wore off or something.