The Yum Yum Factor

So, it's done. Another year, another batch of exciting lentil recipes for the contest over at Canadian Lentils. This year I deep fried them, I roasted them, I turned them into caramel and praline in my attempts to not hide the lentils, but to whip them into submission, force them to break out of their little lentil rut and celebrate them.  All in all, I am pretty exited about all three recipes and encourage you guys to try them out and see how delicious a lentil can be.

I love the way the crispy black beluga lentils mimic caviar  This is it. This is my final entry for the  Lentil Recipe Revelations Challenge  and I think it's a doozer. I had made some of this beluga lentil za'atar at the beginning of my recipe development phase and although I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, I knew they would make an appearance. They are perfect when you want to add a bit of crunch to something and the addition of the za'atar turns the lentils into an actual condiment. I have been sprinkling them on food and eating them straight out of the container for weeks now while I munch and I think. I munch and I think. What to do with these brilliant little black pearls? I found a beet dip in the cookbook, Jerusalem and fell madly in love with it, making variations of it all the time. How you can not fall in love with anything this delicious that is also so bright and colourful? For this appetizer, I used less yogurt so that it is thicker-...

Like any normal human being, I love caramel corn. I also love my roasted lentils AND I love gochujang, that magic, sticky, sweet, spicy Korean hot pepper paste. I bought my first tub of gochujang in a mall called K-Town so, naturally, I am calling this confection "K Corn". Props to my Korean grocery store peeps who are responsible for igniting my love affair with Korean food. This candied popcorn is sweet, it's spicy and it's crunchy, thanks to crispy roasted french lentils and nutty sesame seeds. I had to hide this stuff just so I could have enough to photograph because both of my guys wouldn't stop wandering into the kitchen to sneak handfuls of this caramel corn all night. This is the only snack you will ever need again. It took me a few tries to get the caramel just right but using the base recipe from The Kitchn  as my foundation, it finally all came together. You can find gochujang  at any Korean or Japanese grocery store as well as most general ...

It's that time of year again folks! It's time for this year's  Lentil Recipe Revelations Challenge  and I am ready to try my hand at reinventing the lentil again with three interesting new recipes, but first up: Dessert. Last year, my  "Cauliflower Wings Three Ways" took the grand prize. This year I have put even more pressure on myself to top that feat with something new and fresh, but, most importantly, something delicious that doesn't try to hide the lentil flavour. So, all that said, my first recipe is this ice cream. It started with the lentil praline, which is delicious on it's own and a great nut free praline option for people who have allergies. I had to eventually hide the canister of praline or it was going to disappear before I even had a chance to do anything with it because it's just that addictive. It's nutty and sweet but the taste of the roasted lentil still shines through. Originally, I was going to just do a ...