The Yum Yum Factor

  More adventures in adopting a more heart healthy diet mean more vegetarian meals with less sodium, healthier fats and a soupçon of cheese to punch it up. We have been having a lot of braised beans like the braised romano beans on polenta that I did for Ontario Beans. these beans have become a weekly thing in our house I know that all kinds of beans are now approved so it was time to move onto lentils. My favourite lentils are either Beluga or Du Puy but I haven't been able to find those on any of my online ordering platforms and I have been using plain old green lentils and, rest assured, they work just fine. Just don't use the red lentils because they disintegrate into mush, which is delightful in other recipes, but not in this one. If you use low sodium broth, use less kosher salt. If you use a salt free broth, you will have to up your salt a bit but the roasted tomato/feta and chili oil add so much flavour and saltiness that you don't need as much as you might normally...

The fact that I am not a fan of Valentine's Day did not stop me from making jokes about Shack and his shanks for two days as I was preparing this dish last week. It was only a happy accident that we ended up having this for dinner on Feb 14 but I ran with the opportunity to pretend that it was meant to be a romantic token of my undying love and that alone make them worth their weight in gold. Shank is a funny word at any time but when your husband's name is Shack, it's even funnier. Actually, I often call The Kid Shank in moments of confusion.... you know, now that I think about it, I really should take this as a sign and make them more often. I have been obsessing about this beef cooked in a an ancho coffee sauce that they serve at Xola, a mexican restaurant in The Beaches. The first time I had it they were not called Xola and they were on the Danforth but it's the same restaurant and it's the same, delicious beef that is served with warm corn tortillas s...