For the Love of Lentils +Recipes!

l1

Written by monthly contributor, Mrs. Faye Henry

We did not grow up eating lentils nor did our friends. In fact, it has only been the last several years that they have been included on our menu.  I had decided to look for a natural way to control my cholesterol, which was a bit high, and was blessed to find a wonderful Lebanese cookbook at a health food store.  It set me on a new and interesting style of cooking and the appreciation of new foods which we had not tried before.  The result was lovely in the fact that my health improved... and so did our eating habits.

Lentils were mentioned many times in the cookbook as they contribute in the lowering of cholesterol and are high in fiber.  They contain 6 minerals and 2 B vitamins and are a protein.  Lentils come in dozens of varieties but we enjoy the brown and green type best because they retain their shape.

They are quick and easy to prepare and have a nutty flavor. I love the aroma from them as they simmer away on the stove!

Another wonderful way to enjoy lentils is to sprout them.  It does not require much effort and the taste and nutrition are worth the time.  You can use the sprouts in salads, stir fry, pitas, and wraps.

Sprouted Lentil Salad

Mix together:

2 cups of sprouted lentils
1/2 cup of chopped celery
1/4 cup of shredded carrot

In a small jar whisk together:

2 T. olive oil
1 T. white wine vinegar
1/2 clove of crushed garlic
pinch of salt and pepper

Pour this over your salad along with fresh chopped parsley.

Allow to sit at room temperature for an hour or so.

Sometimes I will also add a squeeze of lemon.

***

Here is a recipe for a main course which is delicious served with a tomato salad that has been seasoned with garlic, lemon juice and olive oil; it is a Lebanese dish called Moujadara.

 

Moujadara

1 cup of uncooked lentils

1 cup of uncooked long grain rice

1 1/2 tsp. salt

2 large onions, julienned

1/4 cup olive oil

3 cups water

Rinse the lentils in cold water, drain, and place in a cooking pot. Add 3 cups of water, bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat for 15 minutes.

Add the rice and salt, return to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer on low another 15 minutes, or until the rice and lentils are tender.

Saute the onions in the olive oil until golden brown. Add to the cooked rice and lentils, and gently mix. Serve right away.

I also add a squeeze of lemon and some chopped parsley.

***

If you would like a very quick and easy Lentil Soup recipe, you'll find one on my site HERE .

Perhaps you sweet ladies already enjoy the benefits of lentils?  Do you have a favorite recipe?

As they say... Love your heart and eat your lentils!

 

Mrs. Faye Henry has been married to her sweetheart for over 41 years and together they own a lovely shop in New Brunswick, Canada. She also leads many young ladies, wives, and mothers in "Keepers of the Home" classes that she facilitates in the local community. She has a heart for mentoring younger women and fulfilling the Titus 2 mandate! Won't you pop over and visit Mrs. Henry at The Blessed Hearth? Pour yourself a nice hot cup of tea and stay for awhile. The fire is lit and burning brightly and the candles smell heavenly. Biscuits are in the oven...

 

 

Join our conversations on Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest

Our Whole Foods, Bulk Storage Pantry

003

Last year, we packed up all of our belongings and moved two states over when my husband was invited to pastor a precious church body that is bursting with anointing and God-given talent.  We love our new church, city, and home!

One of the plans we had for this new house was to turn a small room in the lower level into a bulk foods storage area.  During the last few months we've tossed stray boxes and miscellany into this small room and then closed the door behind us, all the while dreaming of setting up sturdy shelving and beginning to really stock up our whole foods pantry.

Quick Peek Into The Upstairs Closet Pantry

We do have a closet pantry upstairs in the kitchen where I keep my "in process" grains, rices, popcorn, quinoa, beans, etc (mostly stored in OXO containers and mason jars) and a few small appliances, including my yogurt maker and food processor...

But the downstairs pantry-to-be?  Well, that really needed work.

The Bulk Storage Pantry, Before

A few weeks ago, after researching different shelving options and not really feeling a peace about making a purchase, an acquaintance of ours (out of the blue!) offered us some commercial restaurant shelving he'd purchased from an auction.  What a blessing!  We quickly accepted his offer and went to work cleaning and assembling the units.

The Bulk Storage Pantry, After

The room is small, so the shelving fits a bit tight, but there's ample room to store our bulk purchases.  We managed to fit a large upright freezer in there along with three shelving units that are 42" wide and 24" deep.

It's not beautiful, I know, but I suppose it's not intended to be.  Our plan was for simple and functional bulk storage space.  I think we've achieved it, along with ample space for future purchases.

Most of the items in there now were purchased from Azure Standard and Vitacost, including rolled oats, oat groats, hard red wheat, barley, dried beans, organic pasta, organic tomato sauces, and yes, even chocolate.  Chocolate helps makes everything better, doesn't it? *smile*

We have a bit of bottled water for traveling and emergency purposes stored down here, as well as some personal care items.  Also worth noting is that this room stays fairly cool and dark, so I'm storing my potatoes here, too.

In my upright freezer I'll store extra homemade jams, fruits, and veggies that we'll hopefully have after this season's local harvests and sales, as well as some grass-fed beef.  I'm working with a local farmer right now to try and secure half of a grass fed cow.  We don't eat an abundance of meat, but we do eat some meat and are hoping to stock up on the best quality for the best prices possible.

I also like to bake my whole wheat bread (using soaked ww flour) in large batches, then slice and freeze them for easy use later.  That extra bread will be stored in this freezer.  I grind my own grain using this beautiful, durable mill; here's why.

We eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies, and you'll find those stored upstairs on my kitchen counters and in my refrigerator, not in my bulk storage pantry... just in case you were wondering!

Why Stock Your Pantry?

  • Having ingredients on hand means you’re less likely to eat out. It's a huge help with meal planning and prepping... you always have something on hand for a quick meal!
  • A well-stocked pantry makes grocery shopping easier and saves your family money. Having what you need already on hand saves you money at the store because you can stock up on pantry items when they are on sale at their lowest price, and you can plan your meals around meat and produce "loss leader" sales as well. You can also order bulk foods online at a fraction of the cost and eliminate long trips to the store.  Just do a quick run when you're running low on fresh produce!
  • It’s healthier to cook at home from scratch. Having your pantry stocked so that you’re cooking more from home and from scratch is one of the first steps to a healthier lifestyle. Prepackaged, processed food items contain lots of preservatives and additives that wreak havoc on your body.  You control the amount of salt, fat, sugar, etc that goes into everything, and you control where it came from.
  • You're better prepared for hard times or economic difficulty. Be it something extreme (like a local, national, or global catastrophe) or something personal (like a job loss, underemployment, or illness) you will have food on hand to feed your family during lean times.  It's not a matter of fear, but rather of stewardship.

Do you have a bulk foods pantry or have you been thinking about creating one?  I'd love to hear about it!

 

Related posts:

Should a Christian Practice Food Storage?

5 Simple Ways to Build Your Pantry

10 Ways to S-T-R-E-T-C-H Your Whole Foods Budget


Join our conversations on Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest

also shared at Nourishing Gourmet, Simple Lives Thursday, Real Food Wednesday, Homestead Revival and The Healthy Home Economist

Enter to Win One of Three Sport Berkey Water Bottles!

The Berkey Difference

It's easy to assume that the water coming from your tap is crystal clear and entirely safe to drink, but is it really?  And what if disaster occurred - would you have access to enough clean water for your family to drink? For how long?

Some of the best filtering systems are the Berkey water systems (the travel system is the one I have my eye on; it's perfect for traveling as well as emergency use) and so naturally I was thrilled when LPC Survival / Directive 21, a Berkey retailer, generously agreed to be one of our LABB sponsors.

Berkey purification systems are so advanced, they remove from any water source:

  • pathogenic bacteria
  • cysts
  • parasites
  • herbicides
  • pesticides
  • organic solvents
  • detergents
  • cloudiness
  • silt
  • sediment
  • foul tastes and odors
  • toxic metals

And, despite all that they remove from the water, they leave all the precious minerals your body needs completely intact. You can read more about that process here.

Missionaries sometimes bring along Berkey systems when they travel to third world countries, using them to clean their drinking water and ensure their continued health. Berkeys are a top choice because they require no electricity or special water pressure to use.

The Sport Berkey Portable Water Purifier

Are you ready for the exciting news? Directive21 has graciously offered to giveaway THREE Sport Berkey Portable Water Purifiers to one of my readers! That's right, THREE readers will win their very own Sport Berkey!

No more germ-infested water fountains, expensive bottled water, or worries about questionable water sources. Plus, it would be great to take along for camping trips, sporting events, or other fun summer activities.

The Sport Berkey sells for $24.99 + shipping at LPC Survival / Directive21, but you can enter to win one of three bottles here today!

Giveaway is open to US participants only.

***Enter using the Rafflecopter form below; comments on this post will not be counted as entries.***

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to Like a Bubbling Brook email updates - it's free and delivers new posts about faith, homemaking, and real foods right to your inbox.

Join in our community via our Facebook page.

Would you like to advertise on Like a Bubbling Brook? Contact me for details.

 

Gardening with Young Children

ch1

Featured post by Charity Hawkins of The Homeschool Experiment

Planting a garden is a great way to teach kids about healthy food, how plants grow, and the spiritual lessons of God bringing a harvest. March is just the time to begin!

It’s okay if you don’t know anything. Go to the nearest farm store (preferably one where they actually know something, not a big home improvement store), find a man in overalls, and he’ll help you. The people at farm stores or nurseries are usually very knowledgeable. If you don’t have a farm store or nursery, you can try a university extension office for seed planting charts and people who know something.

Just start; you’ll figure it out as you go. It will be a fun adventure and you’ll know more at the end of the summer than the beginning! Think of the fun you and your children will have learning all this together!

1. Get the garden bed ready (before the kids start helping).

If this is your first garden ever, start small. You can use an old plastic wading pool—hack some holes in the bottom of it with your garden spade, fill it up with a few bags of dirt, and you’re good to go. We did this a few years back and it worked great. You’d think the roots would have to go down deeper than the depth of the pool, but somehow our pepper plants figured it out and did really well.

If your husband values landscaping tidiness and (understandably) does not want an old wading pool cluttering up the backyard, you could use pots. I have mostly done basil and tomatoes in pots, but I’m sure lots of things would work well.

If you have a husband who is not an accountant and is not working every Saturday in February and March, maybe he could build you a raised garden bed. Or if you have a wonderful, wonderful father-in-law, he might come over and help you out. A raised bed is good because it gets filled with nice healthy soil instead of grass, and it has good drainage.

If you already have a garden from last year, you’ll need to weed it and get the soil ready. I pay some neighborhood boys to come over and till the dirt with their gas-powered tillers. In an hour they have the garden ready to plant, and it’s worth the thirty dollars for me not to have to spend two days weeding and tilling by hand. You can also ask the people at your farm store what you should add to your soil to make it rich for the plants to grow. It will depend on your area and soil, but they’ll sell you a big bag of something. (If you feel up to it, you can read online about how to make a simple compost heap, and then next year you’ll have your own great compost to add to your  the garden.)

2. Go to the farm store or nursery (with the kids).

Since it’s March, you’ll be looking for “cool weather” crops, like spinach, radishes, most kinds of lettuces, peas, and possibly beans. What you plant and the exact dates will depend what the temperature is like where you live. The nursery or farm store should have a handout of dates for your area, but I’d call first to make sure, because if not you’ll need to look this up online and see what you should be planting now.

Our spring garden always does vastly better than our summer one. I forget to water a lot, and Oklahoma is crazy hot in the summer, so our summer garden (peppers, tomatoes, squash) wilts and limps along. But spring gardens are great because a) you probably want to be outside in the sunshine anyway b) you can count this as science and c) the weather is more conducive to not killing things—usually there is rain and reasonable temperatures.

Get your packets of seeds (we typically do spinach, lettuces, arugula, peas, radishes and beans), and then get all your shovels and spades and head to the garden.  You can learn how to save seeds and plant them the next year, but I’m not sure if this always works. (I think it has to do with if it’s a hybrid or how it pollinates or some other words I don’t really understand.)  I keep meaning to check into it, because that would be much more economical.  If you’re new to gardening, just buy the seeds.  If you’re interested later, you can try to figure out how to preserve seeds for next year’s garden.

3. Plant the seeds.

My kids love digging in the dirt, so here they are breaking up the soil after the neighborhood guys tilled it. This breaks up the big chunks so the roots can grow better. (We were ignoring those monstrous weeds in the background.)

Last year I sat my toddler down at one end so he could continue his merry digging, and my daughter and son (ages seven and five) made rows and dropped in the seeds. Basically, you make a long indentation in the dirt, then sprinkle the seeds in. You’ll thin them out later, plus the kids will not be too exact about all this. The basic idea is to just get them in the ground roughly in a line.

4. Mark your rows.

I give the older kids popsicle sticks and we write the names of each seed on them with Sharpies. These are our row markers. (This counts as handwriting and spelling. If you wanted, you could talk about the inches between rows and work some math in there too.)

5. Water the garden. Pray for it. Talk about God.

I usually tell my kids the verse about “I planted, Apollos watered, but God makes it grow” I Corinthians 3:6. We talk about how we plant the seeds, but God gives sunshine and rain, and he makes the plants grow.

There are so many spiritual applications with seeds. As you read the Bible with your children, you can look for more. A simple one is how the seeds are like when we hide God’s word in our heart, but we have to pull out the weeds (distractions, sin) that would eventually kill out our plants. When we weed, we talk about the weeds being like sin that would eventually choke out our good plants.

6. Care for your garden (let the kids help weed and water).

Whenever you’re out in the backyard, preferably at least weekly, pull out the weeds. When the sprouts start to come up (shown below), you’ll want to thin out the plants, to give them enough room to grow. My kids love this. Look at those babies (these pictures are from several years ago), happily thinning out the garden!

7. Observe it (integrate science).

If you have the time and inclination, this would make a great observation for a science or nature journal. Charlotte Mason, an eighteenth century educator, advocated learning science through lots of hands-on observation.  You could have your kids draw a picture of the seed, then the sprout, then the full-grown plant and make as many observations as they can. Try to stick with the same plant from start to finish. So, draw the radish seed, then the plant, then when you pull it, before you deliver it to Grandma’s house (or eat it), draw the radish. That would be a gorgeous one to do a watercolor of, because of that vibrant red color.

If you have a preschooler, you could have her tell you a few sentences about her seed or her gardening, then you write it down and she could draw a picture. An elementary school student might draw a picture, look up the names of the parts of the seed in a book and label it, and write a few observations. I would think even a high school or junior high student could do this, just with beautiful illustrations and observations. See Edith Holden’s exquisite The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady for nature journal inspiration.

8. Pick it and eat it (May/June).

The first year I planted a garden, I totally forgot about picking and eating the food! I had no idea when I was supposed to do that! If you planted those cool-weather seeds, they will be ready for harvest around May/June, depending on your location and weather. Basically, when the heat comes, your lettuce will start to wilt. I usually head out to the garden with scissors in May (or send my son out with safety scissors) and start snipping off the baby leaves directly into my salad spinner where I will wash them.

You want to wash your greens very, very well, so maybe fill your salad spinner up three or four times with water and drain it out. Because that lovely salad won’t taste nearly as good if you find a dead caterpillar in it, trust me.

If you do happen to find live caterpillars on your greens though, or tiny jewel-like green eggs, this is GREAT! Do not throw them back. Put them in a big Glad plastic container, poke some holes in the lid, and now you have caterpillars to raise. They are probably cabbage moths (white with a black dot on the wing). For food, you want to give them  whatever leaf you found them on. Butterflies and moths are very picky about what they eat, so give them the kind of food they like. You can identify what type of butterfly it is by what the caterpillar looks like. Basically, you keep giving it the food it likes, and put some sticks in the container, and give it a wet paper towel in there so it has some water. Then, when it’s eaten a lot and gotten very big and fat, it will make a cocoon and you and your children get to watch it hatch out as a butterfly! I will try to do a whole separate post about that sometime, but you can read about it online or get a book from your library about it.

I love having fresh arugula because it’s so expensive in the store, and it’s nice to have greens readily available for salads and spring rolls. My kids get so excited to dig for radishes, and though they don’t like the taste because they’re so spicy, they love to collect them and take them to their radish-loving grandma. Their garden favorites are spinach leaves dipped in raspberry vinaigrette and the yummy, yummy peas.

If you still have energy after the spring garden, you can plant tomatoes, peppers, squash, and basil (lots and lots of basil) when it gets warmer. Those are a lot of fun to eat, but you do have to actually remember to water and weed them, which I can’t seem to do. My herbs (basil, cilantro, dill and fennel for butterflies) do the best.

Our beans usually don’t make it, I think because it gets so hot and we forget to water them enough. If you can, put your hose on a timer. I finally got my outside faucet repaired, so I’m going to try to do a timer. Maybe this is the year our summer crops will thrive!

Moms, have fun with your gardens, enjoy your kiddos, and simply see what God makes grow!


Charity Hawkins is the author of The Homeschool Experiment, a novel about one mom’s year of dinner, diapers, meltdowns, and math lessons. You can learn more at www.thehomeschoolexperiment.com.

 

Join our conversations on Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest

[top image credit :: remainder of photos belong to the author of this post]

*also shared at the nourishing gourmet

Curried Chickpeas Over Minted Basmati Rice

086

Last week I posed a question on the LABB facebook page:

What's most important to you in a meal, other than tasting good --- that it be 1) easy, 2) frugal, 3) healthy, or 4) easily modified?

I had a variety of responses, but healthy and frugal seemed to take the lead, with easy to prepare and easily modified still ranking in importance.  This recipe covers all four bases!

If you want to increase the health benefits and get more fiber, you can use brown rice rather than the basmati rice shown here.  Since this is an Indian-inspired dish, I think that the taste of basmati rice works best with the flavors of the curried chickpeas.  And, if you have ravenous meat eaters in your home, you can easily add cubed, cooked chicken into the sauce for a dish that sure to please everyone.

I've been trying to order my chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) in bulk from Azure Standard, but they've been out of stock for the past few months, so I'm planning to place an order for them through Vitacost instead.  I've mentioned it before --- if you refer friends to Vitacost, you can earn $10 in credit for every friend that makes a purchase from them.  It's a great way to build up your pantry frugally by getting the items you need for free!  I've ordered various items from them several times and have been very pleased.  *Pssst... by shopping there through this link, you can get $10 off your first order with them right now.*

Curried Chickpeas Over Minted Basmati Rice

What you'll need for the rice:

  • 1/2 cinnamon stick (about 2-3 inches)
  • 5 small cloves
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 4 teaspoons olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups uncooked basmati rice
  • 3 cups water
  • 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

What you'll need for the curried chickpeas:

  • 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
  • 1/2 cinnamon stick
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 generous tablespoon of curry (powder, not paste)
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 teaspoon fresh ginger root, minced
  • 2 cans of chickpeas or garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained, or 3 1/2 cups of cooked beans if you buy in bulk
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 small can of tomato sauce
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped

For rice: In a large saucepan, over medium heat, saute the cinnamon, cloves, and cumin in the oil for about two minutes.  Remove the cinnamon stick and the cloves and discard (alternately, you can tie them up in a mesh teabag or something similar and let them simmer with the rice; you just don't want the cinnamon falling apart into the rice as it cooks).  Add the rice and stir to coat.  Add water and mint.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes or until done.

For curry: In a large skillet or pot, saute onion and cinnamon stick in oil until onion is tender.  Add curry, garlic, and ginger; cook for one minute.  Discard cinnamon stick.  Add beans, water, tomato sauce, lemon juice, and salt, then bring to a simmer.  Cook for 5 or 6 minutes until slightly thickened.  Stir in cilantro.

Serve curry over fluffed rice and enjoy!

 

You can view other frugal and healthy recipes in my recipe index, here.

*Also shared at the nourishing gourmet

Join our conversations on Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest

Back to the Family Table

1

Written by monthly Titus 2 contributor, Mrs. Faye Henry

The family home today is a very busy place.  Perhaps both parents are working outside of the home and the children may be involved in extracurricular activities.  The trend toward either just eating and running or else setting ourselves in front of some entertainment while we gulp down our food is on the rise.

Let's consider the importance of getting back to the table:

Dining together provides so many benefits for helping your family grow into the strong loving unit that the Lord intended.  It can be a special time daily for you as a family to consider one another.  Each day is full of highs and lows and your dinner table can be a place of encouragement and support...A wonderful time of laughing together... It can also be a lovely way of teaching your children manners, etiquette, and even leadership and hospitality skills.

If mama can make at least one meal a day a happy family time then it will prove to be time of blessing and memory making, and well worth the investment of time and effort.

Frugal tips for setting your dinner table:

  • In the photo above are two tea towels which were only one dollar each, divided into two place mats and four napkins.
  • Cut one tea towel in two for place mats and the other one into four napkins.  I did sew the edges but perhaps you don't really need to...smile...
  • The place settings are just thrift store finds.
  • Blending the colors can make an attractive but frugal eclectic table.
  • Cutting off the two sides of this three dollar vintage table cloth made two table runners, and then I divided the middle into four napkins.

The place settings are two small sets of thrift store vintage dishes blended together to make one large one.  We don't need fancy tables all the time, but it is lovely once in a while to have a special family meal.

One last frugal and decorative tip is to collect vintage silverware.  It does not need to match and it will add style to your eclectic table settings!  Check my site HERE for a green and frugal way to clean your silverware.

Children can help make meal times special by helping mama with the preparations.  Helping to cook the food and setting the table can be fun and creative; girls might like to create a centerpiece, and boys can fill water glasses and arrange the chairs or cutlery.

Then, as a family sit down together, holding hands and thanking the Lord for the blessings of food and fellowship.

Remember, sweet mamas, that these lovely days of family pass all too quickly... let's count our blessings and head back to the table!


Mrs. Faye Henry has been married to her sweetheart for over 41 years and together they own a lovely shop in New Brunswick, Canada. She also leads many young ladies, wives, and mothers in "Keepers of the Home" classes that she facilitates in the local community. She has a heart for mentoring younger women and fulfilling the Titus 2 mandate! Won't you pop over and visit Mrs. Henry at The Blessed Hearth? Pour yourself a nice hot cup of tea and stay for awhile. The fire is lit and burning brightly and the candles smell heavenly. Biscuits are in the oven...

 

Join our conversations on Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest